^S^fTw^ 


OCT    1920 


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BR  115  .P7  K4  1920 
Kelman,  John,  1864-1929. 
Some  aspects  of 
international  Christianity 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 
THE  LIGHT  THAT  SAVES 

16mo.     Net,  15  cents 


jtffa  OF  Pfil^ 


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OCT  I  i>  1920 


tEfje  jWtnbenball  Hetturts,  Jfourtb  &erii 
Dcliurrcb  at  DcPaulu  «Zliiiucrsiti' 


A^W/ML  Sltf^ 


& 


Some 
Aspects  of  International 

Christianity 


BY 


JOHN     KELMAN 


THE  ABINGDON  PRESS 
NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  1920,  by 
GEORGE  R.   GROSE 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Foreword vii 

Preface ix 

I     Rededication 1 

II     The  Relation   of  Christianity   to 

Patriotism 30 

III  Individual  and  National  Morality  61 

IV  A  League  of  Nations     ....  93 

V    Statesmanship  in  Foreign  Mission- 
ary Work 125 

VI    Britain  to  America 146 


FOREWORD 

The  following  lectures  will  meet  a  real  and 
widespread  need.  They  will  contribute  to  a 
clearer  understanding  of  the  obligations  of  a 
true  internationalism  and  of  the  strength  of 
vital  Christianity.  The  author,  a  preacher  of 
international  repute,  speaks  as  a  discriminating 
student  of  human  affairs  and  with  the  moral 
authority  of  a  Hebrew  prophet.  The  convic- 
tion that  the  Christian  religion  is  the  only 
solution  of  the  complex  and  baffling  problems 
of  the  day,  and  that  it  has  to  do  mightily 
with  all  the  world  movements  is  tremendously 
strengthened  by  these  lectures. 

The  Mendenhall  Lectures  of  DePauw  Uni- 
versity, to  which  this  series  of  addresses  be- 
longs, was  founded  by  the  Rev.  Marmaduke 
H.  Mendenhall,  D.D.,  of  the  North  Indiana 
Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 
The  object  of  the  donor  was  "  to  found  a 
perpetual  lectureship  on  the  evidences  of  the 
divine  origin  of  Christianity  and  the  inspiration 
and  authority  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  The 
lecturers  must  be  persons  of  high  and  wide 
repute,  of  broad  and  varied  scholarship,  who 
firmly   adhere   to    the   evangelical   system  of 

Christian  faith.     The  selection  of  lecturers  may 

vii 


viii  FOREWORD 

be  made  from  the  world  of  Christian  scholar- 
ship, without  regard  to  denominational  divi- 
sions. Each  course  of  lectures  is  to  be  published 
in  book  form  by  an  eminent  publishing  house 
and  sold  at  cost  to  the  faculty  and  students  of 
the  university." 

Lectures  previously  published : 

1913,  The  Bible  and  Life,  Edwin  Holt  Hughes. 

1914,  The  Literary  Primacy  of  the  Bible, 
George  Peck  Eckman. 

1917,  Understanding  the  Scriptures,  Francis 
John  McConnell. 

1918,  Religion    and    War,    William    H.    P. 
Faunce. 

George  R.  Grose. 
President  DePauw  University. 


PREFACE 

While  I  was  preparing  my  course  of  Lyman 

Beecher  Lectures,  which  were  delivered  at  Yale 
in  the  spring  of  this  year,  I  received  an 
invitation  to  give  six  lectures  on  the  relation 
of  Christianity  to  International  Subjects,  in 
DePauw  University,  Indiana.  At  first  I  felt 
that  the  task  was  beyond  me.  I  am  no  ex- 
pert either  in  politics  or  economics.  The  time 
at  my  disposal  was  extremely  limited,  and 
much  of  it  was  already  arranged  for.  Yet  on 
second  thought  I  resolved  to  accept  the  invita- 
tion with  which  DePauw  had  honored  me. 
There  are  questions  of  the  most  vital  impor- 
tance on  which  every  man  must  form  an  opinion. 
The  bearings  of  these  questions  are  not  con- 
fined to  the  regions  of  expert  knowledge,  and 
there  is  a  place  for  the  impressions  of  the 
man  on  the  street  —  his  general  sense  of  moral 
values,  his  common  sense  view  of  relative  im- 
portances, and  the  free  play  of  his  conscience 
upon  the  questions  of  the  hour  as  he  understands 
them.  It  is  in  his  name  and  from  his  point  of 
view  that  I  have  prepared  these  lectures. 

They  were  delivered  from  fragmentary  notes, 
and  the  form  they  took  owed  much  to  the 

wonderful    kindness    and    hospitality    of    the 

ix 


x  PREFACE 

audiences.  I  shall  never  forget  the  thrill  of 
those  evenings  in  DePauw,  when  the  response 
was  so  immediate  and  so  inspiring,  and  the 
most  abstract  discussions  seemed  to  change 
to  personal  confidences,  given  and  received. 
But  when  it  came  to  writing  out  the  book  in 
cold  blood,  and  without  the  inspiration  of  the 
friendly  atmosphere  of  the  lecture  hall,  the 
task  assumed  a  far  more  formidable  aspect. 
It  had  to  be  performed  amid  the  confusion  and 
distractions  involved  in  my  removal  from 
Edinburgh  to  New  York,  and  without  access 
to  many  books  of  reference  which  in  other 
circumstances  I  would  have  consulted. 

Meanwhile,  the  political  and  international 
situation  was  changing  from  day  to  day,  with 
the  rapidity  of  a  mountain  torrent,  and  an 
opinion  might  be  antiquated  almost  before  the 
ink  in  which  it  was  written  had  dried.  In 
view  of  all  this,  I  must  trust  to  the  indulgence 
of  the  reader,  in  the  hope  that  he  will  find  in 
the  little  volume  at  least  some  reminders  of  a 
very  stirring  time,  and  that  the  general  argu- 
ment and  point  of  view  may  be  applicable 
still,  even  when  the  detail  of  their  application 
may  have  changed. 

Some  of  the  subjects  of  these  Lectures  have 
already  been  dealt  with  in  the  Lyman  Beecher 
Lectures,  though  in  slightly  different  form. 
Several  of  the  present  series  were  delivered  also 


PREFACE  xi 

at  Ohio  Wesleyan  University,  Delaware,  Ohio, 
and  the  friends  who  heard  them  there,  as  well 
as  the  congregation  of  Fifth  Avenue  Presby- 
terian Church,  where  they  were  delivered  dur- 
ing the  present  winter,  will  permit  me  to  asso- 
ciate them  with  those  in  DePauw  as  I  thank 
them  all  for  the  welcome  they  accorded  me  — 
a  welcome  so  cordial  and  so  generous  that  it 
has  been  a  permanent  enrichment  to  my  life. 

John  Kelman. 

New  York,  March,  1920. 


CHAPTER  I 

Rededication 

Before  the  war  had  ended  there  had  already 
come  upon  the  conscience  of  earnest  men  in 
every  land  a  sense  that  the  future  life  into 
which  peace  would  lead  us  must  not  be  identi- 
cal with,  or  even  very  similar  to,  that  to  which 
we  had  been  accustomed  in  former  days.  The 
Great  War  has  been  so  searching,  and  has 
penetrated  so  thoroughly  into  every  nook  and 
corner  of  human  interest  and  enterprise,  that 
it  must  have  wrought  very  serious  changes 
in  many  of  the  aspects  of  life.  Now  that  the 
peace  has  come,  we  find  ourselves  bewildered 
by  the  number  of  elements,  expected  and  un- 
expected, which  are  entering  into  the  recon- 
struction of  society. 

In  Edinburgh  during  the  spring  of  last  year 
there  was  inaugurated  in  the  churches  a  move- 
ment called  the  Mission  of  Rededication. 
That  Mission,  which  created  considerable  inter- 
est, dealt  with  many  different  questions,  not 
religious  only,  but  political,  social,  and  eco- 
nomic, and  it  has  left  results  both  in  the  teach- 
ing and  in  the  practice  of  men.  The  word  Re- 
dedication is  striking  and  very  provocative  of 
thought.     It  at  once  puts  us  into  the  line  of 


2  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

history,  and  reminds  us  that  this  is  by  no  means 
the  first  dedication  that  has  been  attempted. 
Casting  one's  eye  along  the  line  of  the  past, 
one  sees  the  great  historical  dedications  of  Israel 
in  the  Wilderness,  Solomon's  Temple,  the  out- 
set of  the  Crusades,  the  Wars  of  the  Covenant- 
ers, Plymouth  Rock  and  the  James  River,  the 
American  Revolution,  and  the  Great  War. 
In  all  of  these  men  felt  that  there  had  come 
upon  them  a  new  sense  of  life's  solemn  and 
commanding  opportunities,  and  in  each  particu- 
lar case  they  dedicated  themselves  to  some 
specific  task.  Now,  however,  there  is  a  wide- 
spread feeling  that  things  are  farther  on  than 
they  were  on  any  of  these  former  occasions, 
and  that  there  is  a  greater  living  chance,  if 
only  we  may  be  able  to  avail  ourselves  of  it, 
for  changing  things  forever.  The  final  end  of 
war  has  actually  seemed  to  be  in  sight,  and 
some  of  us  have  not  yet  lost  the  vision  of  it, 
nor  the  faith  that  that  vision  may  be  realized. 
The  new  world  arising  out  of  the  ashes  of  the 
old  will  undoubtedly  have  cleared  itself  of  many 
hampering  conditions,  and  there  seems  to  be  an 
actual  prospect  of  realizing  many  of  these  also. 
When  one  views  the  League  of  Nations  in  its 
widest  scope,  which  is,  indeed,  the  only  complete 
or  understanding  view  to  take  of  it,  one  feels 
overwhelmed  by  the  stretch  of  its  idealism,  and 
can  hardly  believe  that  we  have  come  to  the 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY        3 

point  of  attempting  to  arrange  for  and  organize 
so  mighty  an  affair. 

Yet  so  it  is.  This  generation  cannot  shift 
its  responsibilities  without  losing  altogether 
the  solemn  sense  of  historical  unity.  Our 
dead  lie  upon  every  battlefield,  and  behind  them 
the  vast  company  of  the  dead  of  other  wars, 
and  of  all  the  other  men  and  women  who,  in 
their  generation,  strove  to  realize  ideals  which 
had  revealed  themselves  to  them.  There  is  in 
Edinburgh  a  legend  of  the  ancient  Castle, 
that  a  bugler  blowing  the  "  last  post  "ona 
wild  and  stormy  31st  of  March,  centuries  ago, 
was  killed  there  and  thrown  down  the  rocks; 
and  the  legend  tells  that  every  31st  of  March 
those  that  have  ears  to  hear  can  hear  the  sound 
of  a  fifth  bugle,  whose  notes  linger  long  over 
the  sleeping  city.  The  dead  bugler  comes  back 
to  continue  his  challenge  to  living  men.  When 
we  remember  the  dead  it  is  well  ever  to  remind 
ourselves  that  they  without  us  cannot  be  made 
perfect,  and  that  they  are  waiting  in  their 
silent  places  tojsee  how  we  shall  take  up  their 
unfinished  work,  and  what  we  shall  make  of  it. 

It  is  altogether  fitting,  therefore,  that  at 
such  a  time  as  this  we  should  bring  out  into 
clear  light  all  that  is  most  sacred  in  our  lives, 
our  minds,  and  hearts,  and  dedicate  it  anew  to 
high  ends  for  future  days.  In  doing  this  we 
are  able  with  peculiar  vividness  to  realize  the 


4  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

unity  of  history  and  to  see  our  own  efforts  and 
ideals  in  a  higher  light  because  of  what  they 
have  meant  in  days  gone  by. 

With  all  this  in  our  minds  we  come  to  the 
great  taskf of  the  rededication  of  our  own  lives. 
Again  we  remember  that  this  is  not  the  first 
time  of  dedication.  We  have  all  been  dedi- 
cated before;  indeed,  so  far  as  our  personal 
religious  history  is  concerned,  we  have  been 
dedicated  far  too  often.  When  we  turned 
consciously  and  deliberately  to  God,  at  the 
first  celebration  of  the  Communion,  or  on  the 
occasion  of  the  death  of  friends  very  greatly 
beloved,  we  have  all  undergone  several  such 
experiences,  and  about  each  of  them  there  has 
always  been  a  sense  of  conscience  accusing  us 
of  unfaithfulness  to  former  dedications.  Had 
the  early  dedication  of  our  lives  been  complete 
and  deep  enough,  we  would  not  have  had  so 
far  to  travel  back  in  order  to  renew  our  vows. 
It  is  right  at  such  a  time  as  this  that  we  should 
very  particularly  consider  the  reasons  for  the 
failure  of  former  dedications  in  so  far  as  they 
have  failed.  We  shall  probably  all  find  that 
there  are  two  main  reasons  for  those  failures. 

The  first  of  these  is  that  our  dedicated  things 
were  left  lying  stored  and  inoperative.  We  set 
aside  certain  purposes  and  memories,  and 
solemnly  laid  them  on  the  altars  of  our  spirit, 
and  then  turned  back  from  that  sacramental 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY        5 

act  to  a  life  in  which  the  dedicated  things  were 
to  a  large  extent  forgotten.  Such  dedication 
is  conceived  of  too  much  as  static  rather  than 
dynamic.  It  represents  a  judgment  rather 
than  a  purpose,  an  emotion  rather  than  a  vital 
impulse.  It  is  laid  aside  reverently  in  the 
region  of  dogma,  instead  of  being  led  out  into 
the  field  of  living  experience. 

The  second  reason  for  such  failure  is  that 
often  our  dedications  are  too  general,  and 
therefore  meaningless.  They  express  a  real 
desire  to  be  better  men  and  women,  whose 
spirits  are  more  faithful  to  the  highest  things, 
but  they  do  not  particularize  what  these  things 
are,  nor  examine  what  practical  points  of  con- 
duct are  involved.  In  a  word,  they  lack  point, 
and  in  all  that  concerns  conduct  that  is  a 
fatal  lack.  Now  the  War  has  put  point  upon 
everything.  It  has  forced  us  all  back  from 
generalities  to  that  which  is  concrete  and 
definite.  Our  aspirations  in  such  former  experi- 
ences were  often  little  more  than  excellent 
copy-book  sentiments  to  which,  of  course,  we 
assented,  but  which  never  entered  the  region 
of  practical  conduct.  Now  we  feel  ourselves 
seized  as  it  were  by  the  throat,  and  as  we  seek 
another  dedication  an  imperious  voice  demands 
of  us,  "  What  exactly  do  you  mean?  "  It  is 
necessary  for  us  now  to  examine  all  our  convic- 
tions and  principles,   in  order  that  we  may 


6  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

ascertain  of  them  also  what  their  exact  meaning 
is.  If  our  dedication  is  to  be  a  mere  generality 
to-day,  we  simply  court  a  repetition  of  former 
disappointments.  The  solemn  moment  will 
leave  us  unprepared  for  any  advance  in  the 
future,  and  when  we  come  to  face  the  pressing 
questions  that  will  be  on  us  before  we  know, 
we  shall  find  ourselves,  mentally  and  spiritually, 
"  all  over  the  place." 

Before  we  state  to  ourselves  definitely  the 
meaning  of  our  dedication  it  will  be  well  for  us 
to  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  and  ask  what  we 
mean  by  the  word  "  dedication  "  itself.  It  is  a 
great  word,  which  we  are  accustomed  to  utter 
with  reverence.  How  noble  it  seems!  How 
little  it  often  signifies !  Come,  let  us  bring  it 
to  a  point.  What  is  the  "  dedicated  spirit," 
and  what  does  it  involve? 

Obviously,  in  the  first  place,  it  must  involve 
limitation.  In  young  days  we  all  have  passed 
through  a  stage  in  which  we  understood  the 
words  of  Robert  Browning  in  Pauline . 

"Iam  made  up  of  an  intensest  life, 
...  a  principle  of  restlessness 
Which  would  be  all,  have,  see,  know,  taste,  feel,  all." 

It  is  not  long,  however,  in  the  case  of  all  who 
are  dirigible  in  the  course  of  life,  before  we  learn 
that  this  radiant  vision  is  but  the  figment  of 
young  enthusiasm.     It  is  not  given  to  mortals 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY       7 

to  enter  fully  into  every  phase  of  life,  and  we 
soon  discover  that  we  cannot  know  everything, 
nor  feel,  nor  think,  nor  do  everything  either. 
The  first  requisite  for  a  satisfactory  dedication, 
then,  is  to  select  something  which  we  shall 
know  and  think  and  feel  and  do.  In  other 
words,  to  mark  out  our  province. 

Here  we  touch  upon  the  vexed  question  of 
the  two  rival  ideals  for  education.  The  uni- 
versity education  of  older  days,  prescribing  its 
fixed  number  of  subjects  identically  the  same 
for  all  students,  has  been  replaced  by  the 
modern  arrangement  of  optional  courses  in 
which  each  student  specializes  along  some  par- 
ticular chosen  lines.  The  danger  of  the  new 
plan  is  that  you  may  easily  produce  by  it  un- 
educated experts,  people  who  know  their  own 
narrow  business  thoroughly,  but  who  do  not 
know  it  in  relation  to  the  wider  world.  Such 
uncultured  specialization  is  a  real  danger  which 
must  be  guarded  against  at  the  present  time. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  reached  a 
period  in  the  world's  history  when  mere  broad 
culture  is  not  sufficient  to  meet  the  demands  of 
the  day.  Life  is  asking  us  all  certain  very  def- 
inite questions,  and  it  is  incumbent  upon  every 
one  who  would  serve  his  generation  rightly  to 
select  for  himself  some  limited  area  in  which  he 
chooses  to  specialize,  and  to  which  he  dedi- 
cates his  powers  of  intellect  and  action.     This 


8  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

holds  good  in  the  choice  of  a  profession,  a  choice 
which  will  be  facing  many  of  you  very  soon, 
if  it  has  not  confronted  you  already.  There 
are  all  sorts  of  reasons  which  present  them- 
selves to  a  young  man  or  woman  in  favor  of  or 
against  this  profession  or  that,  and  it  is  here 
that  one  of  the  great  dangers  in  education 
arises.  One  will  choose  a  profession  because  it 
appears  to  him  more  honorable,  or  more  re- 
spectable socially,  or  more  likely  to  provide 
him  with  quick  returns  in  money  than  another. 
Another  will  take  for  the  principle  of  choice 
the  extreme  opposite  of  this,  and  sensitive 
consciences  have  been  often  tempted  to  settle 
the  big  choices  of  life  upon  the  principle  that 
one  should  always  choose  the  more  self-denying 
or  strenuous  course.  These  principles  of  deci- 
sion are  equally  misleading.  When  thinking 
of  the  dedication  of  a  life,  neither  social  position, 
nor  money,  nor  self-denial  are  questions  of  first 
importance.  The  great  question  is  that  of 
efficiency  as  it  applies  to  the  particular  nature 
of  the  person  deciding.  What  can  you  do  best? 
What  does  your  habit  of  mind  lead  you  toward 
doing?  That  will  be  your  best  contribution  to 
the  public  welfare,  and  that  should  be  the  prin- 
ciple ofyoiir  choice.  In  a  later  lecture  we  shall 
revert  to  this. 

A  similar  snare  lies  set  for  the  feet  of  every 
earnest   spirit,    in   the   promiscuous   desire   of 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY        9 

doing  good.  We  want  to  help  and  bless  our 
fellow  men,  and  we  have  not  realized  that  it  is 
possible  for  none  of  us  to  do  good  to  everybody. 
The  result  is  often  a  life  broken  into  frag- 
ments of  good  endeavor,  and  scattered  over 
innumerable  small  attempts  which  neither  link 
on  with  one  another  into  any  concerted  whole, 
nor,  indeed,  achieve  any  completeness  even 
along  their  own  various  lines.  Again  it  is 
necessary  to  mark  out  your  province,  by  select- 
ing those  whom  life  has  given  you  as  the  sub- 
jects of  your  special  service.  In  a  word,  clear 
up  the  matter  of  your  possibilities  and  your 
limits,  and  then  work  within  these  limits  with 
all  your  might.  Find  out  what  you  stand  for, 
and  stand  for  that.  This  is  the  first  great  law 
of  dedication. 

In  this  there  is  already  involved  the  second 
consideration,  namely,  originality.  We  all  de- 
sire to  be  original,  but  some  try  to  be  so  in 
very  curious  fashions.  One  of  the  commonest 
of  these  fashions  at  the  present  time  is  that  of 
achieving  originality  by  contradicting  obvious 
and  proved  truths.  I  need  not  remind  you 
that  anyone  can  do  that  without  any  great 
display  of  genius  or  much  expenditure  of  effort ; 
but  I  would  like  to  point  out  to  you  that  a 
considerable  amount  of  what  passes  for  genius 
and  brilliancy  in  current  literature,  upon  analy- 
sis turns  out  to  be  little  better  than  the  exercise 


10  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

of  this  smart  trick.  Originality  does  not  consist 
in  differing  from  others,  but  in  thinking  things 
out  for  yourself.  It  matters  little  whether 
you  agree  with  others  or  differ  from  them. 
Every  truth  that  passes  through  your  own 
personality,  and  goes  out  upon  the  world  from 
you,  will  have  something  of  that  personality 
communicated  to  it  and  lingering  in  it.  The 
great  thing  is  that  you  should  refuse  the  tyranny 
of  fashion  and  the  habit  of  thinking  through 
other  men's  minds.  "  Ye  are  bought  with  a 
price,  be  not  the  slaves  of  men."  The  price 
has  been  bitter  and  costly  in  the  lives  of  your 
comrades.  At  least  answer  it  by  shaking  your- 
selves free,  that  you  may  stand  independent 
and  think  for  yourselves.  Dedicate  your  life, 
not  only  to  certain  projects  that  you  wish  to 
accomplish  but  to  that  point  of  view  which  is 
distinctively  your  own,  and  to  that  set  of  con- 
victions which  you  have  found  to  dominate 
your  conscience.  In  a  word,  find  out  what  you 
stand  for  and  stand  for  that. 

Let  us  now  ask  what  this  means  in  four 
different  departments  of  our  life  and  interest : 

1 .  Personal  Religion 

In  this  the  new  dedication  will,  on  the  one 
hand,  link  each  of  us  in  with  the  historic  Chris- 
tian faith,  and  on  the  other  hand  it  will  discover 
for  us  what  our  individual  aspect  of  Christian- 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      11 

ity  must  be.  These  two  are  well  embodied 
in  that  interesting  word  sacr amentum.  Famil- 
iarized to  us  in  its  English  form  of  sacrament, 
it  has  a  history  of  peculiar  suggestiveness.  In 
classical  Latin  it  meant  the  military  oath  sworn 
by  the  soldier  that  he  would  be  faithful  to  the 
Roman  army  and  empire;  but  when  it  was 
taken  over  into  the  early  Latin  of  the  Church  it 
assumed  the  new  meaning  of  a  mystery,  the 
disclosure  of  hidden  spiritual  realities  within 
or  along  with  visible  and  tangible  things  of 
sense.  In  our  partaking  of  the  sacrament  both 
these  meanings  are  implied,  and  in  all  dedica- 
tions of  the  spiritual  life  each  of  them  is  present. 

On  the  one  hand  such  a  dedication  neces- 
sarily involves  the  great  loyalties.  The  faith 
of  the  fathers  and  the  saints  has  a  claim  upon 
every  dedicated  spirit,  and  in  our  dedication  we 
link  ourselves  on  to  that  holy  succession.  "What 
they  believed,  I  believe;  what  they  hoped,  I 
hope :  whither  they  are  arrived,  by  Thy  grace,  I 
trust  I  shall  come."  In  these  great  words  of 
Thomas  a  Kempis  he  has  handed  on  to  us  a  splen- 
did formula  for  the  expression  of  the  supreme 
loyalties  involved  in  all  Christian  dedication. 

Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  this  dedication  is 
one's  own,  and  a  man  expects  to  perceive  hidden 
mysteries  which  no  one  else  can  see  as  he  sees 
them,  but  whose  vision  is  always  more  or  less 
determined  by  his  own  spiritual  powers  as  well 


12  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

as  by  his  personal  qualities  and  experience. 
Thus,  even  in  the  matter  of  belief  we  cannot 
hope  to  retain  all  the  details  of  the  creed  of  those 
fathers  and  saints  who  have  gone  before  us. 
In  the  swift  changes  of  thought  which  ac- 
company the  development  of  the  times,  and 
which  new  learning  must  always  necessarily 
produce,  it  is  necessary  that  the  statement 
and  interpretation  of  Christian  truth  should  be 
elastic  enough  to  assume  the  necessary  changes 
of  form.  We  cannot  dedicate  ourselves  to  a 
point  of  view  which  was  possible  only  to  those 
who  accepted  the  scientific  and  critical  con- 
ceptions of,  say,  the  fourteenth  century  or  the 
fifth.  The  Christianity  which  claims  us  is 
that  upon  which  the  light  of  to-day  is  beating; 
and  our  testimony,  while  it  will  always  revere 
the  great  testimonies  of  the  past,  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  in  all  details  identical  with  any  of 
them.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  will  be  in  a 
man's  dedication  to-day  a  double  element. 
If  it  be  as  solemn  and  comprehending  a  thing 
as  it  ought  to  be,  he  will  revere  much  that  he 
does  not  literally  believe ;  but,  at  the  same  time, 
he  will  have  discovered  a  central  core  of  living 
beliefs  which  mean  absolutely  everything  to 
him.  I  remember  passing  through  the  vesti- 
bule of  a  large  and  richly  built  hotel  much 
frequented  by  business  men.  In  that  vestibule, 
among  many  palms  and  other  beautiful  plants, 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      13 

there  was  a  collection  of  fine  white  marble 
statuary.  The  statues  were  reproductions  for 
the  most  part  of  ancient  Greek  ones,  and  it 
was  amusing  to  notice  how  these  men,  in  a 
general  sense  prizing  the  beauty  and  the  change 
from  ordinary  pursuits  which  the  statues  of 
that  vestibule  afforded  them,  yet  passed  out 
and  in,  busy  upon  a  few  vital  interests  of  their 
own,  not  in  the  remotest  degree  connected  with 
art  of  any  kind.  Such  a  vestibule  is  the  entire 
creed  of  some  men,  crowded  with  fair  but  alien 
forms.  It  offers  a  bosky  retreat  for  the  spirit, 
but  it  has  no  connection  with  any  vital  interest 
of  life.  Doubtless  in  the  creed  of  all  men  there 
will  be  such  a  vestibule,  but  the  imperative 
thing  is  to  discover  what  part  of  its  beauty  and 
its  ideas  are  really  vital  to  the  life  and  thought 
of  each  one  of  us,  and  then  to  count  that  and 
that  alone  our  living  creed,  to  which  we  dedi- 
cate our  lives.  In  some,  this  living  core  of 
faith  still  remains  considerable  in  extent;  in 
others  it  has  been  reduced  to  an  extremely 
small  number  of  statements.  This  central 
faith,  found  not  now  from  dogma  but  in  experi- 
ence, and  accepted  without  reserve,  is  at  least 
enough  for  a  man  to  live  by. 

2.  The  Church 

Next  to  personal  religion  in  a  day  of  dedi- 
cation  there   must   recur  to   all  loyal  spirits 


14  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

the  thought  of  that  organized  expression  of  the 
Christian  faith  represented  for  them  by  the 
church  with  which  they  have  been  connected. 
The  present  time  is  one  which  should  quicken 
all  our  church  loyalties,  and  recall  us  to  the 
greater  thoughts  of  church  life  which  have 
commanded  the  imagination  of  so  many  genera- 
tions. It  is  a  common  saying  that  the  Church 
has  failed,  and  that  the  War  has  finally  pub- 
lished that  failure  to  the  world.  I  have  spoken 
elsewhere  about  this  measureless  fallacy,  and 
I  need  not  repeat  the  repudiation  of  a  thing 
so  obviously  untrue.  The  church  to-day  is 
greater  than  she  ever  was  before,  and  she  re- 
tains all  those  possibilities  of  spiritual  reality 
and  effectiveness  which  led  the  apostle  of  old 
to  call  her  by  the  sublime  name  of  the  Body  of 
Christ.  That  body  is  immortal  and  has  the 
power  of  rising  many  times  from  the  tomb. 
It  may  be  buried,  as  it  has  been  buried  time 
and  again,  in  the  earth  of  formality  and  super- 
stition and  the  ambitions  of  ecclesiastical  men ; 
but  it  will  always  rise  again  in  some  form  or 
other  from  the  dead,  with  new  powers  for  meet- 
ing the  exigencies  of  a  new  day.  Indeed,  the 
church  is  like  that  temple  of  Philae  which  stood 
for  many  centuries  on  its  island  in  the  Nile, 
and  to  which  pilgrims  came  from  all  quarters 
of  the  land  to  pray  to  the  river  god  for  floods 
and  harvests.     It  stands  there  still,  but  it  is 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      15 

now  submerged.  The  raising  of  the  waters  by 
the  great  dam  at  Assouan  has  permanently 
and  abundantly  fulfilled  the  prayers  that  were 
offered  there,  and  the  temple  has  passed  away 
in  the  fullness  of  the  answer  to  its  own  prayers. 
So  will  it  be  with  the  Church  of  Christ.  Those 
benefits  to  humanity  for  which  the  church 
stood  long  ago,  in  days  when  there  was  no 
other  institution  which  could  supply  them, 
have  been  in  many  instances  taken  over  by 
other  agencies,  and  to  that  extent  the  church 
has  ceased  to  be  required.  As  in  these  in- 
stances she  has  been  submerged  in  the  fuller 
supply  of  her  own  gifts,  so  it  may  be  that  in 
the  end  all  those  spiritual  blessings  that  she 
has  brought  to  the  earth  will  be  supplied  in 
fuller  measure,  and  they  that  see  the  City  of 
God  will  see  no  temple  therein.  But  that  day 
is  still  far  ahead,  and  while  man's  need  remains 
unsatisfied  and  his  thirst  unslaked,  the  church 
will  ever  stand  upon  the  earth  for  the  supply  of 
the  water  of  life. 

While  we  thus  disclaim  the  accusation  that 
the  church  has  failed  or  that  it  is  going  to  fail, 
let  us  be  candid  in  regard  to  those  things  which 
have  suggested  such  a  view  to  hostile  critics. 
Two  things  especially  need  such  attention. 

(1)  Denominationalism.  In  this  respect  the 
experience  of  the  War  has  done  a  great  deal 
toward  rectifying  erroneous  impressions  and 


16  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

undue  emphasis.  Some  men  went  out  to  the 
front  with  very  strong  convictions  as  to  the 
exclusive  validity  of  their  own  orders,  and  many 
others  brought  to  their  new  experiences  extraor- 
dinarily strong  prejudices  in  favor  of  their 
own  denomination.  At  the  front  they  were 
drawn  close  together,  and  discovered,  in  men 
belonging  to  different  churches  from  their  own, 
high  spiritual  gifts  and  an  obviously  valid 
power  of  ministry  and  call  to  it.  They  saw 
such  men  at  their  work  and  felt  the  reality  and 
effectiveness  of  much  that  they  had  formerly 
thought  of  only  to  criticize.  Besides  that, 
and  more  potent,  was  the  fact  that  they  and 
their  brethren  alike  were  standing  close  to  the 
grim  realities  of  the  battlefield,  the  hospitals, 
and  the  innumerable  graves  of  the  dead.  The 
reality  which  they  felt  in  this  was  of  so  very 
different  a  quality  from  that  which  they  had 
felt  in  the  questions  that  had  divided  them 
previously,  as  in  many  cases  to  sweep  away 
all  such  prejudices,  and  change  entirely  the 
perspective  and  proportion  of  their  views. 
The  impression  left  upon  the  minds  of  many  of 
us  was  that  the  denomination  to  which  a  man 
belongs  is  ultimately  a  matter  of  temperament 
rather  than  conviction,  and  that  all  sectarian 
prejudice  is  an  instance  of  temperament  mas- 
querading as  conviction.  Man's  spirit  is  not 
guided  by  abstract  principles  as  a  rule,  but 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      17 

far  of tener  by  the  subtler  forces  of  temperament, 
strengthened  by  spiritual  experience.  So  we 
came  to  believe  that  there  would  always  be, 
in  all  time,  many  varieties  of  church  life  and 
forms  of  worship.  There  seems  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  men  will  ever  cease  to  group  them- 
selves into  such  classes  as  ritualistic  and  non- 
ritualistic,  or  broad  and  narrow  churchmen. 
And  the  one  thing  that  is  demanded  is  the 
widest  charity  in  every  church  which  will 
admit  that  there  are  those  whom  some  other 
form  of  worship  will  suit  better  than  that  which 
it  supplies,  and  will  rejoice  in  the  variety  of 
operations  of  the  Spirit  to  meet  the  infinitely 
various  spiritual  needs  of  men.  Wherever  it 
is  possible  we  should  stand  not  only  for  unity 
of  spirit  but  for  union  of  organization.  Anyone 
can  see  the  lamentable  waste,  not  of  money 
only,  but  of  enthusiasm  and  effort,  which  is 
caused  by  the  overlapping  of  rival  churches 
between  whose  principles  there  is  no  essential 
difference.  Thus,  for  the  mere  sake  of  economy, 
all  possible  unions  are  to  be  welcomed.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  there  are  matters  which 
divide  certain  churches  from  one  another  which 
run  so  deep  that  an  attempted  union  would 
only  emphasize  the  lack  of  real  unity.  In 
such  cases  it  is  surely  wiser  that  each  should 
preserve  its  own  individuality  as  a  separate 
body  of  believing  men.     The  one  great  demand 


18  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

is  for  the  ending  of  the  spirit  of  exclusiveness. 
Arrogance  of  any  sort  is  one  of  the  chiefest 
dangers  in  the  Kingdom  or  the  Church  of  Him 
Who  told  His  disciples  to  learn  of  Him  because 
He  was  meek  and  lowly  of  heart:  and  there 
has  been  no  such  cause  of  spiritual  arrogance  in 
church  history  as  the  violent  contentions  of 
one  denomination  against  another  for  the 
exclusive  possession  of  the  truth.  It  is  im- 
possible to  speak  too  strongly  about  this. 
"Delenda  est  Carthago":  and  exclusive  arro- 
gance is  our  Carthage  which  must  be  destroyed. 
(2)  Efficiency.  We  must  lay  upon  our  con- 
science, above  all  else,  the  demand  for  efficiency 
in  our  church  work  and  life.  In  order  to 
produce  and  sustain  efficiency  it  will  be  neces- 
sary continually  to  keep  our  eyes  upon  the 
appeal  which  the  church  is  making  to  the  men 
and  women  of  the  successive  generations,  in 
view  of  their  present  phases  of  thought  and 
life.  Especially  in  a  time  like  this,  when  new 
conceptions  are  crowding  in  upon  each  other 
in  every  department  of  social,  public,  and 
private  life,  must  it  be  necessary  to  keep  revis- 
ing the  whole  situation.  There  never  can  be 
a  time  when  we  shall  be  justified  in  taking  our 
church  methods  and  messages  for  granted,  as 
things  which  have  gone  on  edifying  people 
from  time  immemorial,  and  shutting  our  eyes 
to  the  question  whether  these  are  bringing  us 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      19 

a  living  grasp  of  the  problems  of  the  present 
hour.  The  churches  tend  always  to  lapse  into 
the  somnolent  life  of  spiritual  clubs,  which 
may  be  excellent  places  of  luxury  for  the  elect, 
but  which  have  no  meaning  for  the  live  world 
of  men  and  women  around  them.  A  great 
American  preacher,  contrasting  the  hard  and 
upright  pews  when  he  began  his  ministry  with 
the  luxurious  sofas  on  which  his  congregation 
heard  his  later  words,  told  them  that  when  he 
began  to  preach  there  the  congregation  burst 
forth  into  the  eager  doxology,  "  Praise  God 
from  whom  all  blessings  flow,"  while  now 
they  expressed  themselves  in  the  pathetic  notes 
of  "Art  thou  weary,  art  thou  languid?"  The 
spiritual  club  must  always  become  weary  and 
languid,  but  that  is  an  abnormal  thing  in  Chris- 
tianity. The  rest  which  Christ  promises  to  his 
followers  is  not  a  still  or  idle  rest :  it  is  a  peace 
that  garrisons  the  hearts  of  men  girded  for 
aggressive  work.  Thus  it  behooves  us  to-day 
to  clear  our  decks  for  action. 

We  have  already  spoken  of  this  in  connection 
with  that  working  creed  which  is  the  essential 
part  of  our  belief.  Let  us  apply  it  also  to  the 
matter  of  organization.  It  has  often  seemed 
to  me  that  the  vision  of  Ezekiel  had  an 
interesting  bearing  upon  the  matter  of  church 
organization.  In  that  vision  the  prophet  saw 
the  chariot  of  the  Lord,  and  there  were  wheels 


20  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

in  it,  and  as  it  were  a  wheel  within  a  wheel.  We 
all  know  that  chariot,  and  most  of  us  have  some- 
times been  at  our  wits'  end  to  manage  the  com- 
plication of  wheels  in  the  church  machine.  The 
fact  is  that  most  churches  have  too  many  wheels 
in  them,  and  in  order  to  bring  our  church  life 
back  to  reality  there  is  a  good  deal  that  ought 
to  be  stopped.  There  is  no  harm  in  wheels, 
but  then,  like  the  prophet's,  there  ought  to  be 
eyes  in  the  wheels  so  that  the  church  may  see 
whither  it  is  going;  and  there  ought  to  be  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  in  the  wheels,  that  effective 
and  purposeful  Spirit  which  can  never  inhabit 
or  direct  useless  machinery.  Whenever  any 
part  of  the  church  organization  has  become 
obsolete  it  should  be  cut  off  or  changed.  You 
may  have  met  occasionally  the  ancient  church 
member  who  is  proud  of  the  fact  that  he  has 
been  a  regular  attendant  of  the  Young  Men's 
Meeting  for  forty  years  —  and  is  now  almost  its 
only  attendant.  One  respects  such  a  man  for 
his  fidelity,  but  wishes  that  he  had  also  been 
granted  some  corresponding  sense  of  humor. 
There  is  no  virtue  or  advantage  in  perpetuat- 
ing any  society  for  a  day  longer  than  it  is  living 
and  serves  a  definite  purpose.  The  preliminary 
duty  in  all  church  organization  is  to  clear 
off  every  piece  of  surplusage,  and  to  end 
everything  that  is  effete:  then  with  keen 
eyes   to    scrutinize    the    present    situation,    to 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      21 

strengthen  and  adapt  all  existing  organiza- 
tions which  can  be  useful  in  present  circum- 
stances, and  to  invent  new  ones  where  they  are 
required. 

In  this  plea  for  reality  we  have  been  dealing 
only  with  outward  things,  but  reality  always 
includes  idealism  as  well.  Realism  is  the 
most  unreal  thing  in  the  world.  The  high 
ideals  which  the  church  was  created  to  proclaim, 
the  essential  message  which  she  is  there  to  tell 
—  these  are  the  supreme  questions  for  her  real- 
ity and  her  effect.  If,  indeed,  God  has  broken 
silence  and  given  to  men  in  his  church  definite 
words  to  proclaim  to  their  fellows,  all  else 
should  be  held  in  subordination  to  the  full  and 
effective  proclamation  of  those  words.  This 
is  a  matter  for  the  conscience  both  of  minister 
and  congregation,  and  we  who  preach  should 
continually  see  to  it  that  the  thing  we  say  is 
vital,  and  is  such  that  we  can  reverently  regard 
it  as  the  authentic  Word  of  the  Lord.  All 
else  is  of  secondary  importance  to  that;  and 
in  our  rededication  we  should  examine  our- 
selves concerning  our  message,  and  certify  our 
consciences  that,  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  judge, 
it  is  indeed  the  Word  of  God. 

3.  The  Social  Outlook 

In  such  a  day  as  this  it  is  imperative  that 
we  should  all  realize  as  we  never  did  before 


22  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

that  no  man  liveth  unto  himself.  Indeed,  one 
of  the  chief  effects  of  the  War  upon  most  men's 
minds  has  been  the  expansion  of  the  idea  of 
personality.  We  are  personal  within  various 
circles  of  shorter  or  longer  radius.  The  most 
intimate  view  of  personality  is  that  of  the 
individual  interests  and  purposes  and  destinies 
which  are  determined  by  our  own  personal 
and  individual  life.  But  there  is  also  a  per- 
sonality which  is  determined  by  the  conditions 
of  home,  the  wider  circles  of  friendship,  of  fellow- 
workmen,  and  so  on;  and  beyond  that  there  is 
the  personality  which  is  part  of  our  society, 
and  which  is  determined  for  each  of  us  by  the 
social,  economic,  and  moral  conditions  of  every 
other  member  of  that  society.  We  cannot 
separate  ourselves  from  men,  nor  cease  to 
identify  ourselves  with  their  social  well-being, 
without  ceasing  to  be  fully  personal  ourselves. 
The  hermit  who  cares  for  none  of  these  things 
is  a  human  being  whose  personality  has  shrunk. 
Only  he  who  lives  in  the  questions  of  his  day 
and  the  common  interests  of  mankind  can 
claim  to  be  in  the  larger  sense  personal. 

This  means,  of  course,  that  each  of  us  is 
called  upon  to  take  his  share  in  the  play  of 
thought  and  conscience  that  is  operating  around 
him.  The  two  points  at  which  this  necessity 
needs  to  be  most  clearly  defined  are  at  present 
those  of  home  and  labor. 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      23 

Many  things  are  to-day  threatening  the  sa- 
credness  and,  indeed,  the  security  of  home  life. 
On  the  one  hand  the  changed  conditions  of  life 
are  leaving  less  time  and  leisure  for  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  old  and  sacred  home  loyalties,  and  the 
relations  between  parents  and  children  are  in 
serious  danger  on  that  account.  On  the  other 
hand  the  complexities  of  the  marriage  problem 
have  given  rise  to  many  theories,  and  in  some 
quarters  to  a  very  distinct  propaganda,  which 
threaten  the  old  loyalties  and  tend  toward  a  view 
of  marriage  which  would  make  it  little  better 
than  a  temporary  and  convenient  contract. 

In  regard  to  labor,  amid  the  bewildering 
multitude  of  problems  which  are  clamoring 
for  solution  to-day,  one  can  clearly  see  one  or 
two  fundamental  principles  which  must  be  in- 
cluded in  the  dedication  of  every  Christian  man. 

On  the  one  hand  there  is  the  just  demand  for 
a  living  wage  and  for  equality  of  opportunity. 
By  a  living  wage  more  is  meant  than  a  wage 
which  shall  be  sufficient  to  keep  body  and  soul 
together.  It  must  include  room  in  every  life 
for  human  interests,  for  beauty  and  joy  and 
love.  Equality  of  opportunity,  as  distinct  from 
the  impossible  demand  for  equality  of  posses- 
sions, means  that  every  human  being  shall  have 
a  full  chance  of  making  the  utmost  of  himself 
and  of  developing  his  powers. 

On  the  other  hand,  justice  and  the  welfare 


24  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

of  society  demand  protection  for  the  govern- 
ment of  the  people  by  the  people,  and  not  by 
any  section  of  the  community.  They  demand 
that  no  organization  in  any  country  shall  over- 
power the  elected  government  of  that  country, 
or  tyrannize  in  its  own  interest  over  the  nation's 
liberties  and  rights. 

These  are  but  two  examples  out  of  a  multi- 
tude which  might  be  cited.  The  world  at  the 
present  time  is  in  a  state  of  great  upheaval.  In 
wartime,  strikes  which  hampered  the  fighting 
of  men  in  the  field  and  endangered  their  lives, 
taking  advantage  of  their  heroism  for  the  selfish 
ends  of  men  who  stayed  at  home,  were  cer- 
tainly among  the  most  despicable  phenomena 
of  any  age.  But  now,  in  the  universal  rest- 
lessness, amid  the  innumerable  strikes  that  are 
taking  place  for  any  reason  or  for  none,  it  has 
become  imperative  to  get  down  to  bed-rock 
principles.  The  immediate  cause  of  the  rest- 
lessness is,  of  course,  the  psychological  effect 
of  the  War,  with  its  dislocation  of  all  ordinary 
ways  of  living  and  thinking.  But  these  things 
are  symptoms  of  far  wider  and  deeper  facts,  and 
there  is  a  widespread  sense  of  inequality  in  the 
distribution,  not  only  of  the  good  things  of 
life,  but  of  the  opportunities  for  living  in  any 
full  and  adequate  sense.  Now,  it  is  impossible 
that  Christian  men  can  in  the  act  of  rededica- 
tion  avoid  the  responsibility  for  clear  thinking 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      25 

upon  these  matters.  It  is  not  enough  to  talk 
bitter  generalities  about  Bolshevism.  It  is  a 
time  not  for  invective  but  for  understanding. 
We  have  too  long  kept  our  minds  and  con- 
sciences in  water-tight  compartments,  as  if 
justice  or  love  could  ever  be  confined  to  any 
one  region  of  human  life.  I  know  a  city  that 
is  built  upon  several  ridges  of  hill  with  deep 
hollows  lying  between  them.  The  architects 
of  former  days  bridged  these  hollows  in  order 
to  provide  a  level  street  running  from  the 
suburbs  to  the  center  of  that  city.  By  a  kind 
of  natural  gravitation  the  misery  and  crime  of 
the  city  sank  to  its  lower  levels,  which  be- 
came a  sort  of  moral  swamp  or  morass,  fester- 
ing with  the  decay  of  human  life.  But  many 
of  the  citizens  daily  crossed  the  arches  as  they 
went  to  and  fro  from  business,  and  thus  man- 
aged to  live  apart  from  the  wretchedness  which 
had  invaded  their  town.  That  city  is  like  too 
much  of  our  modern  life.  We  have  been  con- 
tent if  we  fulfilled  respectably  our  duties  to 
our  smaller  and  narrower  personality,  and  we 
all  have  our  arches  which  permit  us  to  remain 
in  ignorance  of  disagreeable  social  facts.  We 
have  our  comfortable  houses,  and  we  show 
them  to  our  friends  with  pride,  saying,  "  My 
house."  Not  until  we  have  gone  to  the  mean- 
est hovel  in  our  town,  and  heard  amid  its  misery 
the  voice  of  conscience  say,   "  This  is  your 


26  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

house/'  have  we  faced  the  truth  of  modern  life. 
The  strike  is  your  strike,  the  revolution  is  your 
revolution;  and  at  the  present  day  there  is  no 
hiding-place  so  remote  or  so  secure  as  that  a 
man  with  any  living  conscience  of  Christianity 
can  take  refuge  in  it  from  the  call  of  his  fellow 
men.  Any  dedication  which,  in  a  world  like 
the  present,  omits  all  reference  to  social  con- 
science and  effort,  will  have  a  strange  reception 
when  it  goes  up  to  heaven  as  the  fit  offering  of  a 
man  who  owes  his  life  to  the  blood  and  death 
and  sacrifice  of  millions  of  laboring  men. 

4.  The  International  Situation 

The  widest  circle  within  which  to  conceive 
of  our  personality  is,  of  course,  the  international 
one.  As  we  shall  see  in  a  future  lecture,  the 
War  has  done  nothing  to  break  down  the  loyalties 
of  true  patriotism,  but  it  has  demanded  that 
patriotism  shall  be  no  longer  exclusive.  Inter- 
national problems  are  the  business  of  every 
man  who  is  capable  of  reading  a  newspaper, 
and  until  he  has  included  them  in  his  dedica- 
tion he  cannot  have  in  any  case  completed  it. 
The  points  at  which  these  affect  us  most 
directly  at  the  present  time  are  two : 

(1)  Our  Duty  Toward  the  Vanquished.  The 
collapse  of  the  Central  European  Powers,  and 
the  five  years  which  preceded  that  collapse, 
have  left  many  lands  in  a  condition  of  the  most 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      27 

appalling  misery  that  has  ever  been  known  on 
earth.  The  hunger,  disease,  and  death  that 
are  everywhere  to-day  in  Europe,  except  in 
one  or  two  favored  lands,  are  a  far  more  clamant 
fact  in  the  situation  than  any  other  that  could 
be  mentioned.  We  do  not  ask  for  any  prefer- 
ence or  favor  to  the  vanquished  over  the  others; 
but  it  is  demanded  from  the  conscience  of  every 
Christian  man  that  he  shall  not  eat  his  own 
bread  in  contentment,  nor  shall  he  dare  to  give 
thanks  to  God  for  it,  until  he  is  doing  some- 
thing toward  the  feeding  of  those  who,  by 
hundreds  of  thousands,  are  starving  to  death. 
There  is  a  further  duty  that  we  owe  to  the 
vanquished.  No  country  will  lie  crushed  for- 
ever; and  they  too,  whenever  they  show  that 
it  is  possible  to  trust  them,  must  necessarily 
be  admitted  to  the  comity  of  nations.  Every 
one  who  pays  any  attention  to  the  facts  of  the 
case  must  necessarily  see  that  this  is  so. 
Now,  it  is  possible  to  pour  contempt  upon  our 
fallen  enemy,  and  to  continue  our  reproaches 
so  that  he  will  become  further  embittered,  and 
will  secretly  plan  future  revenges  and  prepare 
means  to  execute  them.  Those  for  whom  your 
only  attitude  is  contempt,  are  not  likely  by 
that  treatment  to  be  made  fitter  for  the  duties 
which  you  are  already  demanding  of  them  in 
view  of  future  days.  The  need  for  self-respect 
in  the  vanquished  is  as  important  almost  as  the 


28  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

need  for  bread,  and  it  were  well  if  we  were  on 
the  outlook  for  all  opportunities  of  fostering  it. 
We  should  welcome  all  expressions  of  a  change 
of  mind  in  our  former  enemies.  We  should,  as 
soon  and  as  far  as  it  is  possible  to  do  so,  trust 
them  to  act  on  different  principles  in  the  future. 
In  the  meantime  this  will  only  be  possible  when 
it  is  safeguarded  by  sufficient  guarantees  of 
good  faith;  but  everything  should  certainly  be 
done  to  hasten  the  time  when  that  intolerable 
situation  will  be  over,  and  we  shall  all  be  striv- 
ing for  a  common  future  of  human  well-being. 

(2)  Of  the  League  of  Nations  I  shall  speak 
in  a  future  lecture,  but  this  I  shall  say 
to-day.  There  are  those  who  ask  "  What  is 
the  use  of  all  this  talk  of  Utopia,  when  so  many 
people  have  only  hovels  to  live  in?  "  And  the 
answer  is  that  if  this  Utopia  does  not  come,  we 
shall  not  have  even  hovels  to  live  in,  but  only 
graves.  The  ferocity  and  the  extent  of  the 
devastation  of  human  life  and  property  in  the 
late  War  are  such  as  to  make  the  vision  of  a 
future  war  more  frightful  than  any  conception 
of  hell  that  has  ever  been  imagined  by  man. 
The  only  thing  that  stands  between  us  and  that 
appalling  outlook  is  some  arrangement  which 
will  be  effective  for  universal  peace,  and  that 
also  must  enter  into  our  dedication.  It  has 
been  abundantly  published  by  those  who  know 
the  situation  best,  that  the  League  cannot  be 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      29 

manufactured  either  by  statesmen  or  experts 
of  any  kind,  but  that  if  it  is  ever  to  be  opera- 
tive it  must  be  the  expression  of  the  whole 
conscience  and  opinion  of  the  people  of  every 
land.  He  who  in  private  conversation  or  in 
public  speech  does  anything  to  bring  this  great 
ideal  into  contempt,  or  to  discourage  men  from 
hoping  in  it,  is  taking  upon  himself  the  most 
serious  moral  responsibility  that  can  well  be 
imagined.  Our  influence  may  be  small  and  our 
sphere  narrow,  yet  each  one  of  us  may  do  his 
part  in  accustoming  the  public  mind  to  think 
in  terms  of  a  League  of  Nations,  and  so  prepar- 
ing the  way  for  the  coming  of  such  a  League. 

In  all  this  lecture  I  have  tried  to  suggest 
directions  in  which  our  rededication  should  be 
made.  Let  us  not  be  satisfied  with  any  mere 
expression  of  good  dispositions,  moral,  political, 
or  religious.  Let  us  think  out  things  all  along 
the  line,  and  dedicate  our  lives  to  certain  clear 
views  and  definite  purposes.  Men  and  women 
so  dedicated,  and  knowing  what  they  are  dedi- 
cated to,  are  the  center  and  source  of  public 
opinion  in  every  land.  This  clarity  and  de- 
termination in  our  thought  and  purpose  to-day 
is  the  first  duty  laid  upon  us  all.  The  past 
enjoins  it,  the  present  needs  it,  the  unborn  are 
waiting  for  it,  and  God  trusts  us  that  we  shall  not 
fail  them. 


30  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Relation  of  Christianity  to 
Patriotism 

There  are  many  false  conceptions  of  pa- 
triotism, and  they  have  done  deep  injury  to 
the  public  life  of  the  present  time.  We  have 
all  heard  of  the  patriotism  which  is  mere  jingo, 
which  stands  for  "  one's  own  country  right  or 
wrong,"  and  develops  into  blind  race  hatred, 
the  fruit  of  ignorance  and  poverty  of  imagina- 
tion. Apart  from  still  more  serious  objections 
to  this  false  ideal,  there  is  the  fact  that  it  is 
simply  provincialism.  It  has  been  well  said 
that  "  the  unstrained,  fully  realized  conscious- 
ness, just  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  the  region 
beyond  one's  horizon  is  as  rich,  as  colored,  and 
as  practicable,  as  the  region  that  happens  to  be 
within  it,  is  liberty."  It  is  obvious  that  patri- 
otism of  the  narrower  sort  is  a  most  noxious 
vice  passing  itself  off  as  a  virtue.  True  patri- 
otism differs  from  jingoism  radically  and  com- 
pletely. It  has  an  open  eye  to  the  faults  as 
well  as  to  the  good  qualities  of  one's  own  land, 
to  its  defects  as  well  as  to  its  nobilities:  it  re- 
gards one's  own  land  as  a  blessing  and  not  a 
curse  to  other  lands,  and  seeks  to  establish  its 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      31 

relations  with  the  world  on  a  basis,  not  of  dom- 
ination, but  of  help. 

Patriotism  had  its  origins  in  very  distant 
primitive  times.  It  began  as  the  enlargement 
of  home  and  its  intimate  circle.  In  one  way  or 
other  the  struggle  for  existence  extended  the 
family  bonds  to  a  larger  number  of  persons, 
and  established  the  family  ideal  on  a  greater 
scale.  For  purposes  of  war  and  defence,  for 
advantages  for  the  huntsman  the  agricul- 
turist and  the  trader,  such  an  extension  was 
absolutely  necessary,  and  gradually  it  spread 
to  the  tribe,  the  race,  and  the  country.  In 
the  early  history  of  civilization  these  larger 
companies  of  men,  cemented  by  race  affinity 
and  common  origin,  had  assumed  such  power 
over  the  imagination  and  thought  of  the 
individual  that  each  man  tended  to  regard  his 
own  country  as  the  only  object  of  service  or 
of  affection,  while  he  looked  askance  at  men  of 
every  other  race.  The  lingering  relics  of  this 
barbaric  point  of  view  are  seen  in  the  jingo 
patriotism  of  to-day. 

In  the  world  which  Christ  entered,  those 
who  lived  in  the  land  of  Palestine  were  caught, 
as  it  were,  among  three  patriotisms.  First 
there  was  the  Jewish,  with  its  narrow  and  in- 
tense belief  in  itself  as  the  only  people  of  reli- 
gion and  of  destiny.  Then  there  was  the  Ro- 
man, which  had  spread  through  all  the  known 


32  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

world  its  huge  loyalty  to  the  empire,  deifying 
its  emperors  as  an  outward  expression  of  the 
fact  that  the  imperial  idea  was  already  divine. 
Besides  these  there  was  the  Greek  patriotism, 
whose  empire  was  that  of  the  mind,  and  whose 
loyalty  was  that  of  all  cultured  spirits  through- 
out the  world.  Among  these  three  rival  pa- 
triotisms Jesus  lived,  and  the  general  impression 
of  his  attitude  is  that  it  was  singularly  indiffer- 
ent to  them  all.  He  entered  the  Jewish  world 
at  a  time  of  fierce  hatreds.  The  memory  of 
Antiochus  Epiphanes  and  the  Maccabees  turned 
Jewish  men  bitterly  against  the  Greek  culture, 
while  the  memory  of  the  more  recent  Roman 
conquest  was  gall  and  wormwood  to  the  nation, 
and  the  whole  country  of  Galilee  was  perpetu- 
ally threatening  new  rebellions.  All  this  was 
embittered  by  the  policy  of  the  Herods,  who 
adopted  the  Greek  culture  and  fawned  upon  the 
court  of  Rome.  When  they  would  fain  have 
imposed  this  point  of  view  upon  the  nation  they 
were  met  by  the  stern  denunciation  of  their 
subjects,  who  held  that  such  friendship  of  the 
world  was  enmity  against  God.  It  was  further 
embittered  also  by  the  system  of  publicanism, 
in  which  Jewish  men  became  tax  farmers  under 
the  Roman  government,  and  thereby  incurred 
the  stigma  of  treason,  which  was  affixed  upon 
them  relentlessly  by  patriotic  Jews. 

In  the  spirit  of  Jesus  there  was  much  that 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      33 

ran  counter  to  all  this.  He  proclaimed  him- 
self the  Son  of  Man,  and  stood  aloof  from  petty- 
hatreds  of  every  kind.  He  refused  utterly  to 
become  a  partisan,  and  insisted  on  doing  jus- 
tice to  outsiders  in  that  land  of  so  many  bitter 
hatreds.  He  carried  his  independence  to  such  a 
length  that  those  who  desired  him  as  a  political 
leader  actually  tried  to  resort  to  force  in  their 
attempts  to  make  him  a  king.  As  to  the 
Romans,  he  made  many  friendships  among 
them,  and  showed  no  animosity  to  the  Roman 
rule.  He  excuses  his  Roman  judge,  and  under- 
stands how  little  he  can  comprehend  of  the 
situation  he  is  there  to  deal  with.  He  speaks 
words  of  highest  praise  to  Roman  centurions, 
and  says  of  the  soldiers  who  tortured  him  on 
the  cross,  "  They  know  not  what  they  do." 
When  brought  to  a  definite  issue  upon  the 
point  of  tribute,  he  tells  men  to  render  unto 
Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's,  and  gener- 
ally gives  an  impression  of  one  whose  policy 
it  is  to  accept  the  facts  of  his  time  and  country 
without  resistance.  As  to  the  publicans,  it 
was  his  friendship  with  them  which  constituted 
one  of  the  chief  reasons  for  the  hatred  and  per- 
secution with  which  he  met.  He  saw  in  them 
not  merely  renegade  Jews,  but  the  bitter  reck- 
lessness of  the  outcast,  the  pathos  of  vulgarity, 
and  the  miseries  that  often  go  with  riches. 
Pitying    them    and    understanding    them,    he 


34  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

became  known  as  the  Friend  of  publicans  and 
sinners.  As  to  the  Greeks,  he  had,  indeed, 
nothing  in  common  with  Herodism,  and  his 
words  about  them  that  wear  soft  clothing  are 
scornful  and  contemptuous.  But  it  was  not 
because  they  were  foreign  that  he  despised 
them,  but  because  their  degenerate  Hellenism 
was  so  petty  and  so  contemptible  in  comparison 
with  his  own  ideal  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
When  Greeks  came  to  visit  him  one  can  see 
evident  traces  of  a  mutual  attraction,  and  the 
record  of  their  conversation  is  one  of  the 
happiest  of  all  the  stories  of  his  contact  with 
men.  Over  all  lesser  loyalties,  including  them 
all  in  so  far  as  they  were  worthy,  but  excluding 
all  their  bitter  partisanship,  there  floated  in  his 
mind  and  imagination  the  great  ideal  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  and  the  brotherhood  of  men; 
and  in  such  a  time  as  his  this  necessarily  de- 
manded the  weakening  of  lesser  patriotic  ideals 
that  the  higher  loyalty  might  be  supreme. 

There  must  be  added  to  this  the  recollection  of 
the  personal  idiosyncrasy  of  Jesus.  The  nomad 
instinct  was  among  the  deepest  parts  of  the 
inheritance  of  Hebrew  men,  and  one  can  see  in 
Jesus  many  traces  of  that  detachment  which  is 
so  deeply  ingrained  in  the  people  of  Eastern 
lands.  When  he  said  that  "  foxes  have  holes, 
and  the  birds  of  the  air  have  nests;  but  the 
Son  of  man  hath  not  where  to  lay  his  head," 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      35 

he  spoke  of  that  which  in  him  was  of  choice 
rather  than  of  necessity.  Such  a  nature  is 
strongly  individualistic,  and  it  was  not  un- 
natural that  the  first  conception  of  Christian- 
ity was  confined  pretty  exclusively  to  the  per- 
sonal relation  of  individual  souls  with  God. 
In  the  early  church  this  swiftly  degenerated 
into  the  abuses  of  asceticism,  which  shocked 
the  Roman  conscience.  Turning  its  back  upon 
public  duties  of  all  kinds,  it  created  the  same 
problems  of  diminishing  population  (owing  to 
the  practice  of  celibacy),  and  of  lives  withdrawn 
from  the  service  of  the  state,  whose  modern 
counterparts  are  presented  by  the  self-indulgent 
practices  and  habits  of  certain  classes  among 
the  wealthy. 

Yet  there  are  undoubtedly  strong  elements 
of  patriotism  in  the  thought  of  Jesus.  To  the 
woman  of  Samaria  he  claims  that  salvation 
is  of  the  Jews,  and  is  obviously  ready  to  stand 
up  for  His  own  country  as  against  all  others 
when  its  distinctive  rights  are  challenged. 
Nor  could  anything  more  clearly  express  the 
bitter  sorrow  and  passionate  affection  of  the 
patriot's  heart  than  His  late  words  about 
the  doom  of  Jerusalem. 

The  early  Christian  Church  presented  to 
the  world  an  unintelligible  spectacle,  and  the 
expression  of  the  Roman  bewilderment  was  its 
accusation  against  the  church  of  the  hatred 


3G  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

of  the  human  race.  No  stronger  nor  more 
sweeping  charge  was  ever  made  against  an 
institution,  and  it  was  due  to  the  church's 
preference  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  to  the  king- 
doms of  this  world.  Readers  of  Marius  the 
Epicurean  will  remember  how  in  early  Chris- 
tianity the  new  Rome  superseded  the  old 
imperial  enthusiasm  with  a  spiritual  vision 
impossible  for  any  but  the  initiated  to  under- 
stand. It  is  true,  as  Professor  Dill  has  said, 
that  the  early  Christian  was  a  citizen  of  two 
cities.  Yet  the  spiritual  vision  of  the  City  of 
God  was  commanding,  and  it  undoubtedly  did 
extinguish  for  a  time  the  light  of  the  earthly 
vision  in  many  souls.  St.  Paul  himself  mani- 
fested throughout  his  writings  a  significant 
indifference  to  earthly  ties  and  associations, 
and  this  tended  rather  to  increase  than  to 
diminish  as  the  persecutions  of  the  first  cen- 
turies succeeded  one  another. 

The  indifference  was  increased  also  by  two 
other  causes.  The  first  of  these  was  the 
expectation  of  the  immediate  end  of  the  world. 
Early  Christendom  lived  upon  tiptoe,  expecting 
the  momentary  return  of  Christ  to  take  over 
the  government  of  the  earth.  To  men  in  this 
mood  nothing  mattered  very  greatly  except 
their  relation  with  Christy  and  bonds  of  pa- 
triotism, no  less  than  those  of  the  family  itself, 
undoubtedly  were  much  relaxed.    The  second 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      37 

cause  for   the   diminished   hold   of  patriotism 
upon  the  early  Christians  was  the  identifica- 
tion   of    patriotism    with    the    Roman    gods. 
Roman  patriotism  has  been  defined  as  "  loyalty 
to  the  gods  who  had  kept  by  them  all  through 
their  history  ";   and  from  the  Roman  point  of 
view  Gibbon's  words  are  not  inaccurate  that 
"  every  Christian  treated  with  contempt  the 
superstitions  of  his  family,  his  city,  and  his 
province."     At  first  this  state  of    mind  was 
treated  by  the  Roman  people  with  incredulous 
astonishment.     It    was    impossible    for    their 
minds  to  conceive  such  a  point  of  view.     But 
the    astonishment    swiftly    changed    to    fierce 
resentment,    and    the    apprehension    of    every 
imaginable  danger  to  the  state  and  to  the  world. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  the  Christians,  the 
kind  of  patriotism  which  they  rejected  was  an 
intolerable  bondage.     By  its  insistence  on  the 
worship  of  that  in  which  they  had  no  belief, 
it  refused  them  liberty  of  thought  and  speech 
and   worship.     Thus,    as   against   the   Roman 
patriotism,    Christianity   meant   for   them   all 
that  was  involved  in  intellectual  and  spiritual 
freedom,  and  that  glorious  liberty  of  the  chil- 
dren of  God  was  dearer  to   them  than  any 
country,  dearer  even  than  natural  ties  of  blood 
and  of  affection. 

It  would  be,   however,   a  false  reading  of 
history  to  say  that  it  was  the  spirituality  of 


38  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

the  early  church  which  opposed  patriotic 
sentiments.  The  two  were  really  quite  com- 
patible, and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  whenever 
persecutions  were  relaxed,  patriotism  was  at 
once  restored.  When  finally  Rome  was  Chris- 
tianized, patriotism  in  Christians,  both  in 
the  form  of  loyalty  to  Rome  itself  and  to  their 
own  particular  town  and  province,  immediately 
revived.  The  Christian  apologists  emphati- 
cally defend  the  attitude  of  Christian  soldiers 
and  citizens  on  this  point.  Christianity  proved 
itself  averse  to  patriotism  only  when  loyalty 
to  one's  country  was  clearly  anti-Christian. 
When  that  obstacle  was  removed  in  any  in- 
stance, Christianity  at  once  returned  to  its 
patriotic  loyalties,  enjoining  all  to  "  do  their 
duty  to  the  fatherland  of  earth,  while  ever 
mindful  of  the  fatherland  of  souls/ ' 

In  the  subsequent  development  of  Christian- 
ity in  all  the  lands  it  conquered,  the  idea  of  a 
chivalrous  connection  between  patriotism  and 
religion  was  strong  and  constant.  Rough  as 
the  forms  of  it  may  have  been,  yet  we  see  it 
developing  steadily  in  every  land.  The  Wales 
of  the  Arthurian  Cycle,  Dante's  Florence  and 
Elizabeth's  England,  all  reveal  the  noblest 
spirits  combining  the  two  ideals.  Indeed,  as  re- 
gards Elizabeth,  it  has  been  noted  that  on  her 
accession  Protestantism  became  the  accepted 
religion  of  the  nation,  so  that  it  came  to  be 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      39 

the  duty  of  every  loyal  citizen  to  uphold  it. 
Roman  Catholicism  thus  became  identified  with 
political  revolts  and  with  the  enemies  of  Eng- 
land, while  Protestantism  became  identified 
with  her  lovers  and  supporters.  In  this  in- 
stance we  see  patriotism  taking  over  even 
the  ideals  of  individual  churches  and  blending 
with  them.  In  the  Puritan  days  it  was  the 
same.  The  Scottish  Covenanters  offer  a  bril- 
liant and  conspicuous  example,  and  I  need  not 
remind  you  how  deeply  the  two  elements  have 
blended  in  America,  and  how  clear  that  fact  has 
been  in  all  the  American  wars. 

A  curious  point  emerges  here.  In  many 
wars  both  sides  have  identified  their  particular 
patriotism  with  religion  and  Christianity.  This 
apparent  contradiction  need  not,  however, 
perplex  us.  Each  of  the  warring  nations  has  a 
vision  of  certain  great  loyalties,  including 
gratitude  to  their  land  for  all  its  benefits,  the 
sense  of  honor  to  that  which  is  their  own  by 
birth,  and  all  the  romantic  associations  which 
have  strengthened  and  intensified  these  bonds. 
Every  one  of  these  elements  is  in  itself  a  Chris- 
tian sentiment.  The  mistake  arises  in  the 
judgment  of  proportion  passed  upon  the  particu- 
lar causes  for  which  the  war  is  being  waged. 
That  is,  of  course,  a  different  matter,  and  it 
does  not  necessarily  interfere  with  the  genuine- 
ness either  of  the  religion  or  of  the  patriotism. 


40  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

The  Christianity  of  each  nation  which  takes 
part  in  a  war  takes  on  special  characteristics 
which  belong  to  national  associations.  These 
particular  features  of  national  life  and  loyalty 
get  mixed  up  with  the  larger  ideal,  so  that  every- 
thing which  can  claim  to  be  patriotic  seems 
also  to  be  religious.  It  is  only  on  such  grounds 
as  these  that  one  can  understand  the  utterances 
of  so  large  a  body  of  the  German  pastors  and 
professors,  and  especially  of  such  spiritually 
minded  men  among  them  as  Professor  Herrman 
of  Marburg,  which  astonished  all  the  thinking 
world  during  the  Great  War.  It  is  to  be  noted 
that  small  and  persecuted  states  have  shown  a 
special  tendency  to  identify  God  with  their 
own  national  fortunes,  rather  than  with  inter- 
national or  imperial  conceptions  of  the  world. 
God  and  God's  righteousness  are  continually 
on  their  side.  That  is,  righteousness  as  they 
see  it  and  on  their  scale  of  proportions.  In 
many  cases  they  see  it  accurately  and  their 
scale  is  just:  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
sometimes  they  may  be  blind  to  larger  inter- 
national considerations,  which  also  must  be 
taken  account  of  if  one  would  form  an  ade- 
quate judgment. 

The  outstanding  feature  of  modern  public 
life  is  the  rapidity  with  which  the  world  has 
been  internationally  organized  in  recent  years. 
Labor,   science,   industry,   sport,   foreign   mis- 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      41 

sions  and  practically  all  other  human  interests, 
have  felt  the  same  impulse  from  local  to  inter- 
national ideals  and  habits  of  thought.  In  June, 
1913,  there  was  held  in  Brussels  a  Congress  of 
International  Associations,  and  an  international 
monthly  magazine  was  published  which  con- 
tained a  list  at  that  date  of  no  fewer  than  four 
hundred  such  associations.  This  is  one  of 
the  most  important  facts  with  which  modern 
statesmanship  has  to  reckon.  Lord  Bryce,  in 
his  address  to  the  International  Congress  of 
Historical  Studies,  has  said  that  whatever 
happens  in  any  part  of  the  world  has  now  a 
significance  for  every  other  part.  Abraham 
Lincoln  expressed  the  same  view  in  his  day, 
and  now  it  has  become  almost  a  commonplace 
of  statesmanship. 

The  War  has,  of  course,  increased  the  mean- 
ing and  the  spread  of  internationalism  to  an 
enormous  extent,  and  the  steadily  increasing 
rapidity  of  intercommunication,  which  has  now 
resumed  its  former  course  after  five  years' 
interruption,  will  continually  tend  toward  inter- 
national rapprochements. 

These  international  ideals  necessarily  appeal 
to  Christianity,  which,  being  the  gospel  of 
humanity,  has  always  taken  for  one  of  its  chief 
watchwords  the  ideal  of  the  brotherhood  of 
men.  The  modern  movement  is  in  the  line 
of  that  faith  which  in  early  days  transcended 


42  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

all  barriers  separating  the  Gentile  from  the 
Jewish  world.  From  the  first  the  Christian 
ideal  was  the  enthusiasm  of  humanity,  whose 
obviously  broad  and  generous  theory  of  life 
has  all  along  been  adopted  by  intelligent  Chris- 
tians. In  the  words  of  Mr.  J.  H.  Oldham, 
"  Christianity  from  its  very  nature  transcends 
national  differences." 

Such  views,  however,  exaggerated  and  paro- 
died by  non-Christian  political  propagandists, 
have  become  definitely  antagonistic  to  the 
patriotic  ideal.  Dr.  Johnson's  well-known  for- 
mula that  "  patriotism  is  the  last  refuge  of  a 
scoundrel  "  had  not  been  without  many  modern 
echoes  whose  virulence  is  often  untempered  by 
the  doctor's  wit.  Many  such  quotations  could 
be  given.  One  British  writer,  for  instance, 
recently  stated,  in  recantation  of  his  former 
doctrines,  that  he  would  prefer  an  invasion  of 
Great  Britain  to  the  coming  in  of  Universal 
Service.  Another  writer  quotes  Maude's  book 
on  Tolstoy  to  the  effect  that  patriotism  is  like  a 
suit  of  armor  put  on  by  a  young  man,  which 
no  longer  fits  him  in  his  maturity,  and  that  it 
is  already  a  gigantic  superstition  which  is 
fast  becoming  a  hypocrisy.  We  are  told  that 
it  obscures  our  vision,  burdens  our  belief, 
causes  blood  to  flow  in  torrents,  and  has  become 
a  perennial  spring  of  hatred,  malice,  and  evil- 
speaking.     Finally   we   are   assured   that   our 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      43 

welfare  lies  in  the  unification  and  brotherhood 
of  men,  that  the  superstitions  which  divide 
men  must  be  destroyed,  and  that  among  these 
superstitions  none  is  worse  than  patriotism. 
The  net  result  and  impression  of  all  this,  after 
we  have  allowed  for  exaggeration  and  heat,  is 
that  patriotism  must  be  considered  as  old- 
fashioned,  a  virtue  long  out  of  date  and  hope- 
lessly behind  the  times. 

Yet,  after  all  this  is  said,  we  cannot  but 
remember  that  the  main  work  of  Christianity 
is  the  redemption  of  human  nature  in  its  com- 
pleteness, and  that  it  is  the  protector  rather 
than  the  destroyer  of  human  instincts.  All 
the  troubles  and  dangers  of  society  in  the  past 
have  been  due  to  what  Matthew  Arnold  calls 
"  the  undue  preponderance  of  single  elements." 
Noble  causes  which  have  seen  the  world  with 
but  too  single  an  eye,  have  ignored  and  assailed 
elements  on  the  other  side  which  were  equally 
true  to  human  nature,  and  by  doing  so  have 
sealed  their  own  doom.  The  mark  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  his  insistence  upon  the  completeness 
of  our  manhood.  If  crushed,  instinct  tends  to 
become  gangrenous,  and  to  corrupt  and  poison 
the  whole  system  of  the  body  politic.  Out  of 
every  clash  of  social  ideals  Christianity  in  the 
end  emerges,  larger  than  the  particular  empha- 
sis of  the  hour,  for  the  preservation  of  the 
perpetual  human  elements,  some  of  which  are 


44  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

always  threatened  by  violent  temporary  reac- 
tions. I  believe  that  the  corporate  spirit  as 
embodied  in  the  nation  is  one  of  those  perpetual 
elements,  and  that  Christianity  will  ultimately 
be  found  defending  and  not  assailing  it.  That 
it  is  an  instinct  which  has  a  very  deep  hold 
upon  normal  human  nature  will  hardly  be 
denied  by  any  of  its  critics.  The  response  which 
the  publication  of  The  Man  Without  a  Country 
drew  forth  in  America  and  Britain  was  very 
remarkable,  and  these  sentiments  still  hold 
their  own.  There  is  something  in  us  all,  or  at 
least  in  almost  all,  which  justifies  Scott's  famous 
lines  about  a  man's  sentiments  toward  "  his 
own,  his  native  land."  A  curious  instance 
occurred  some  years  ago,  in  which  a  man  of 
education  and  good  social  standing  found  him- 
self for  some  trivial  offense  suddenly  within  the 
cognizance  of  the  police.  He  told  afterward 
the  story  of  his  feeling  when  the  policeman's 
hand  touched  his  shoulder  to  claim  him.  The 
sudden  revolution  which  occurred  within  him 
upset  the  very  foundations  of  his  life,  and  he 
perceived  as  in  a  vision  the  significance  of  the 
fact  that  his  own  nation  had  turned  against 
him.  To  be  in  prison  in  a  foreign  country 
may  be  an  inconvenience,  or  a  jest,  or  even  an 
honor;  but  when  your  own  land  judges  you 
adversely,  when  all  that  you  have  honored  and 
held  dear  casts  you  out,  the  consequent  de- 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      45 

spair  reveals  suddenly  the  grip  of  the  patriotic 
instinct  upon  the  heart.  For  "  the  country  is 
in  itself  an  entity.  It  is  a  Being.  The  Lord 
God  of  Nations  has  called  it  into  existence,  and 
has  placed  it  here  with  certain  duties  in  defense 
of  the  civilization  of  the  world."  These  words 
remain  permanently  true.  No  nation  can 
afford  to  do  without  this  sentiment,  and  no 
man  can  afford  to  do  without  it.  The  man 
without  a  country,  presenting  a  spectacle  of 
one  poor  individual  pitted  against  a  cen- 
tury of  the  life  of  the  United  States  of 
America,  will  remain  to  the  end  of  time  sig- 
nificant. 

It  may  be  replied  that  the  instinct  of  pa- 
triotism is  irrational.  Why  be  loyal  to  this 
land  in  particular?  Other  lands  may  be  greater 
than  our  own,  with  larger  opportunities,  more 
spiritual  aspirations,  and  more  effective  or- 
ganization. Why  should  we  not  choose  the 
land  which  is  best  all  round,  in  these  and  other 
respects,  and  call  that  our  country?  Let  us 
admit  for  the  time  being  that  the  instinct  is 
irrational.  I  am  by  no  means  on  the  side  of 
those  who  of  recent  years  have  originated  what 
might  almost  be  called  a  cult  of  irrationality, 
but  one  has  to  remember  that  these  writers 
have  been  taken  seriously.  Benjamin  Kidd, 
in  his  Social  Evolution,  made  so  strong  an  at- 
tack upon  the  practice  of  putting  one's  faith  in 


46  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

reason  as  to  force  the  thinking  world  to  revise 
its  whole  conception  of  the  relation  of  reason  to 
faith.  Now,  the  main  point  of  Kidd's  book  is 
that  religion  depends  always  upon  irrational 
sanctions,  and  that  its  demands,  which  it  al- 
ways has  been  able  to  enforce  upon  faith  and 
conscience,  are  ultra-rational  in  their  appeal. 
Personally  I  am  far  from  subscribing  to  this 
doctrine  in  its  entirety,  but  there  is  no  question 
whatever  as  to  the  importance  of  that  which  is 
entirely  beyond  the  scope  of  reasoning,  in  de- 
termining conduct  and  establishing  principles 
of  faith.  We  are  asked  why  we  should  give 
our  loyalty  and  devotion  to  this  land  in  par- 
ticular, and  the  answer  is  simply  because  it  is 
our  land.  The  same  thing  is  true  in  regard  to 
the  family.  Why  should  we  be  loyal  to  this 
particular  man  because  he  happens  to  be  our 
father,  or  set  this  particular  child  who  happens 
to  be  our  own  child  above  the  children  of  other 
people  in  our  esteem?  It  is  not  that  these  are 
absolutely  the  best  persons  in  the  world,  for 
there  may  be  other  fathers  or  other  children 
whose  moral  character  is  superior  to  theirs. 
Nor  can  we  justify  our  preference  by  the  belief 
that  these  are  the  wisest,  or  the  cleverest,  or 
the  kindest  of  parents  and  children.  The 
obvious  answer  that  we  make  to  the  whole 
perplexity  is,  "This  father  is  your  father  and 
this  child  is  your  child."     Nature  has  assigned 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      47 

these  and  no  others  to  you  as  your  parent  or 
your  child.  Your  loyalty  to  them  may  be  as 
irrational  as  anybody  likes  to  call  it,  but  it  is 
a  fact,  and  it  will  never  cease  to  be  a  fact 
while  your  human  nature  remains  sound  and 
normal.  Certain  extreme  forms  of  Socialistic 
theory  have  ignored  this,  and  pressed  their 
rationalism  to  the  length  of  the  subversion  of 
the  family  ideal.  In  much  recent  literature 
about  marriage  problems  and  all  that  these 
involve  in  connection  with  the  family,  there 
has  been  a  tendency  to  revolt  from  all  the  old 
loyalties  and  to  subordinate  the  security  of 
homes  to  the  convenience  and  pleasure  of  in- 
dividuals. Mr.  Chesterton's  well-known  an- 
swer is  summed  up  in  three  words,  "  loyalty  to 
life."  There  could  not  be  a  better  expression 
of  that  instinct,  which  cuts  through  all  sophis- 
tries however  plausible,  and  appeals  to  whole- 
some natures,  apart  altogether  from  reasons 
that  can  be  given  and  argued. 

If  this  be  so,  patriotic  and  family  loyalty  is 
not  irrational  after  all.  If  it  is  a  deep  and 
essential  element  in  human  nature,  which 
asserts  itself  independently  of  any  reasoning 
pro  or  con,  then  we  may  take  it  for  granted 
that  deep  and  essential  reasons  ultimately  will 
be  found.  Nature  is  very  wise  and  in  the  end 
is  sane,  and  she  can  give  a  reason  for  the  faith 
which  she  asks  men  to  place  in  her.     We  shall 


48  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

now  turn  to  some  of  those  reasons  which  lie 
behind  patriotic  loyalty. 

1.  The  Larger  Cosmopolitan  Brotherhood  is 
too  large  a  unit  for  all  the  purposes  which  it 
requires  to  serve.  We  admit  its  claims  so 
far  as  they  go,  and  we  admit  the  advantage  of 
a  wider  outlook  than  that  of  mere  family  and 
country,  and  the  duty  of  a  sense  of  brotherhood 
with  all  the  world.  We  admit  also  that  to  the 
end  there  will  be  a  state  of  unstable  equilibrium 
and  necessary  compromise  between  the  larger 
and  smaller  ideals  which  we  shall  find  ourselves 
compelled  to  cherish.  As  Matthew  Arnold  has 
pointed  out,  each  nation  is  in  need  of  elements 
which  abound  in  some  other  nation,  and  the 
narrow  kind  of  patriotism  which  would  refuse 
all  such  accessions  to  our  national  inheritance 
would  be  a  wanton  impoverishment  of  the 
spirit.  Besides  all  this,  we  simply  cannot 
escape  the  wider  brotherhood  even  if  we  would. 
Historically,  the  touch  of  one  nation  with  an- 
other has  always  been  the  meeting  place  of  va- 
rious streams  of  ideas;  and  the  blended  stream 
has  flowed  from  that  point,  not  only  richer  for 
the  contact,  but  vitalized  by  it  and  fuller  than  the 
sum  of  the  two  national  streams  that  met.  Our 
British  patriotism,  for  instance,  involves  loyalty 
to  at  least  ten  different  national  ideals,  for  it  is 
extraordinarily  composite,  and  retains  elements 
of  everything  that  went  to  its  making. 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      49 

All  this  tends  to  the  necessary  cosmopoli- 
tanism which  must  exist  in  every  rightly 
balanced  mind.  Yet  that  wider  unit  can  never 
take  the  place  of  or  expel  our  loyalty  to  the 
nation.  It  has  been  proved  abundantly  by 
experience  that  there  is  a  point  beyond  which 
the  expansion  of  loyalties  simply  will  not  work. 
There  are  certain  limits  within  which  our 
human  forces  have  to  be  confined  if  they  are 
to  be  effective  for  practical  ends.  Beyond 
these  limits  the  forces  grow  diffuse  and  futile. 
If  you  have  so  much  water  and  no  more,  you 
may  send  it  down  the  valley  in  a  narrow  channel 
or  allow  it  to  expand  into  a  broad  lagoon,  but 
in  the  one  case  you  will  be  able  to  utilize  it  for 
practical  purposes  which  you  wish  to  achieve, 
while  in  the  other  case  it  will  accomplish 
nothing.  All  ideals  of  every  kind  have  their 
limits  within  which  alone  they  can  work  effec- 
tively, and  the  worst  enemies  of  each  ideal 
are  those  who  try  to  push  it  beyond  its  limits 
and  expect  it  to  do  effective  work  so. 

Of  altruism  this  is  notoriously  true.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  one  does  not  love  one's  fellow 
men  with  any  great  intensity  unless  these  are 
in  the  nearer  groups.  A  railway  accident  near 
our  home  will  cause  profound  emotion  in 
almost  everybody,  but  we  read  without  any 
such  emotion  of  a  similar  railway  accident 
which  has  happened  to  take  place  on  the  other 


50  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

side  of  the  world,  in  a  country  which  we  have 
never  seen  and  with  which  we  have  no  personal 
connection.  To  love  one's  fellow  men  as  such 
is  indeed  a  Christian  commandment,  but  it 
has  required  the  whole  strength  of  men's  per- 
sonal attachment  to  Christ  to  make  it  possible 
to  obey  that  commandment,  and  it  has  been 
well  said  that  it  is  only  for  His  sake  that  one  is 
able  to  do  it  at  all.  To  love  our  neighbor  as 
ourself  is  apt  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  pious 
generality,  and  the  young  man's  question, 
"  Who  is  my  neighbor?  "  is  eminently  perti- 
nent. Christ  has  given  an  incalculable  in- 
crease to  men's  power  of  imagining,  and  has 
flung  the  horizon  of  our  sympathies  far  out 
beyond  its  former  limits;  yet  the  facts  remain, 
and  all  the  most  important  work  of  humani- 
tarianism  is  done,  not  on  the  circumference, 
but  near  the  center.  The  strength  and  patience 
and  loyalty  with  which  we  can  face  the  wider 
problems  depend  mainly  upon  the  intenser 
feelings  which  we  experience  in  the  regions 
nearest  to  the  individual. 

First  in  intensity  comes  the  marriage  bond, 
which  still  remains  the  ultimate  basis  of  all 
other  fidelities.  Next  to  that  there  is  the 
loyalty  to  one's  family  and  friends,  known  to 
the  Romans  as  pietas;  and,  third,  there  is  our 
feeling  to  our  own  land  and  the  patriotic 
traditions  and  loyalties  upon  which  that  feeling 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      51 

rests.  These  are  human  nature  at  the  heart  of 
it.  By  these  chiefly  human  society  stands  or 
falls,  and  by  forcing  out  the  bond  further  afield 
one  is  apt  to  find  that  all  the  loyalties  are  grow- 
ing weaker.  In  a  word,  these  three  loyalties  are 
the  source  from  which  the  force  for  the  wider 
enterprise  of  cosmopolitanism  is  supplied.  It 
is  a  very  interesting  fact  in  illustration  of 
this  statement  that  the  most  successful  mis- 
sionaries have  generally  been  exceptionally 
patriotic  men  and  women.  One  has  only  to 
read  the  lives  of  such  men  as  Livingstone, 
Mackinnon  of  Damascus,  or  Stewart  of  Love- 
dale,  to  realize  how  true  this  is. 

The  danger  of  neglecting  this  bed-rock  fact 
of  human  nature  is  that  of  importing  into  our 
public  life  the  element  of  vppis,  that  inso- 
lence, or  presumptuous  disregard  of  the  facts 
of  nature,  which  goes  with  an  eye  fixed  only  on 
far-off  things.  He  that  loveth  not  the  nation 
which  he  hath  seen,  how  shall  he  love  the 
nations  which  he  hath  not  seen?  He  cannot 
love  them.  He  can  let  his  imagination  indulge 
itself  among  them,  but  he  will  always  be  more 
or  less  of  a  spiritual  tourist,  without  those 
responsibilities  which  attach  to  his  immediate 
neighborhood.  It  is  by  bearing  the  actual  and 
obvious  responsibilities  of  his  life  that  a  man's 
disposition  will  be  tempered  and  trained  so  as 
to  be  able  rightly  to  cope  with  further  and  wider 


52  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

ones.  The  only  true  fire  of  altruistic  enthu- 
siasm burns  from  within  outward.  Thus  our 
argument  is  that  cosmopolitanism  is  too  big 
and  vague  an  ideal  for  practical  purposes. 
It  tends  to  a  cheap  and  easy  humanitarianism, 
which  is  generally  ineffective.  Humanity  at 
large  does  not  mean  much  to  any  of  us,  and 
does  not  ask  much  from  us.  But  our  own  land 
docs  ask  much  —  it  asks  very  many  and  very 
definite  things.  He  who  disparages  patriotism 
in  favor  of  the  larger  unit  may  very  well  find 
that,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  his  trans- 
ference of  loyalty  involves  the  shirking  of  defi- 
nite responsibilities.  In  other  words,  our  good 
feeling  toward  mankind  in  general  must  begin 
somewhere,  and  it  will  be  always  wisest  and 
soundest  when  it  begins  near  home  and  not  at 
the  antipodes,  among  the  men  we  know  best 
and  not  those  we  know  least. 

It  may  be  added  that  this  has  been  proved  on 
many  occasions  to  be  historically  true.  Greece 
produced  her  best  art  in  the  time  of  her  narrow 
patriotic  enthusiasms.  Afterward,  in  the  days 
of  a  wider  and  more  diffused  culture,  her 
originality  died  out.  The  intense  loyalty  of 
the  early  Roman  days  is  another  example. 
When  she  achieved  world-wide  empire  Rome 
had  indeed  seized  upon  an  idea  of  unparalleled 
magnificence,  but  even  that  sublime  idea 
proved  itself  unable  to  keep  her  loyalties  alive. 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      53 

2.  A  second  argument  for  the  rationality 
of  patriotism  is  the  consideration  that  patriotic 
loyalties  are,  in  the  last  analysis,  neither  more 
nor  less  than  the  repayment  of  lawful  debts. 
This  is  a  point  of  view  which  cannot  be  ignored, 
because  it  is  this  which  best  defines  Christian 
patriotism  and  reveals  its  special  qualities. 
The  past  has  done  much  for  us,  and  the  only 
way  of  discharging  our  debt  to  the  past  is  to 
pay  it  over  to  the  future.  A  large  part  of  this 
debt  is  due  to  our  own  land  and  must  be  paid 
to  that  land.  This,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  not 
in  the  least  irrational.  The  debt  is  not  an 
affair  of  fantastic  honor,  but  of  plain  and  com- 
mon honesty  which  no  one  can  afford  to  avoid 
or  neglect.  In  four  different  ways  this  debt 
may  be  detailed: 

(1)  Your  land  has  fought  for  you.  Even  the 
shortest  tour  that  we  take  in  any  of  the  older 
lands  conducts  us  from  battlefield  to  battlefield 
where  men  have  laid  down  their  lives  in  multi- 
tudes as  the  price  that  had  to  be  paid  for  the 
freedom  and  prosperity  which  are  the  inheri- 
tance of  their  successors.  This  debt  must  be 
paid,  not  in  vain  boasting  about  the  glory  of 
ancient  battles,  but  in  the  acceptance  of  disci- 
pline as  the  law  of  our  own  life.  We  hold  our 
liberties,  our  comforts,  and  our  very  selves, 
from  hands  that  were  wet  with  blood  when 
they  passed  them  on  to  us.    There  has  been 


54  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

of  late  years  a  very  distinct  tendency  toward 
that  worship  of  comfort  which  demands  that 
everything  shall  be  made  easy  for  everybody, 
and  the  love  of  pleasure  was  certainly  tending 
to  soften  the  fiber  of  human  nature.  Lord 
Morley  has  expressed  this  in  memorable  words : 
"  Far  the  most  penetrating  of  all  the  influences 
that  are  impairing  the  moral  and  intellectual 
nerve  of  our  generation  .  .  .  with  new  wealth 
come  luxury  and  love  of  ease,  and  that  fatal 
readiness  to  believe  that  God  has  placed  us  in 
the  best  of  all  possible  worlds,  which  so  lowers 
men's  aims  and  unstrings  their  firmness  of 
purpose.  Pleasure  saps  high  interests,  and  the 
weakening  of  high  interests  leaves  more  undis- 
puted room  for  pleasure."  The  Great  War 
has  indeed  put  a  fearful  check  upon  any  such 
tendency,  but  one  must  remember  that  in  the 
reaction  after  great  wars  there  is  always  a 
special  danger  of  falling  deeper  into  those  evil 
ways  which  the  war  for  the  time  has  reversed. 
Not  in  the  war  only,  but  to  the  end  of  time,  it 
remains  true  that  there  is  no  royal  road  which 
leads  anywhere  worth  getting  to,  and  that  the 
flowery  paths  of  life  are  always  apt  to  end  in 
the  eternal  bonfire.  Thomas  Carlyle's  demand 
for  obedience  will  never  cease  to  find  an  answer 
in  the  consciences  of  wise  men:  "  Were  your 
superiors  worthy  to  govern  and  you  worthy  to 
obey,  reverence  for  them  were  even  your  only 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      55 

possible  freedom."  Not  in  the  army  only,  but 
all  along  the  line  of  life,  there  will  be  places  in 
which  imposed  and  unchallenged  discipline  will 
be  necessary.  There  is  no  inherent  objection 
to  blind  obedience.  Until  a  man  is  competent, 
his  obedience  cannot  be  too  blind.  No  man 
has  any  right  to  hold  any  position  he  cannot 
occupy  for  the  public  good,  nor  to  enjoy  any 
privilege  he  cannot  use  for  the  public  benefit. 

In  fact,  the  first  need  is  not  to  enjoy  oneself 
or  to  assert  one's  rights;  it  is  to  find  oneself, 
and  that  can  be  done  only  through  discipline 
and  many  defeats.  We  soon  discover  that 
we  cannot  all  be  firsts,  and  he  who  does  not 
love  his  work  well  enough  to  do  his  very  best 
in  the  second  place  or  the  third  is  no  true  pa- 
triot. To  take  a  licking  and  wait  your  time 
is  the  mark  of  a  wise  pupil  in  the  school  of  life. 
Such  discipline  seems  to  be  the  only  way  in 
which  we  can  make  any  presentable  return  to  a 
land  that  has  fought  for  us  on  many  fields. 

(2)  Your  land  has  educated  you.  In  my 
own  country  of  Scotland  we  know  all  about 
that.  It  is  a  land  where  the  parish  schools 
have  had  their  "  lads  o'  pairts  ";  where  fisher- 
men will  discuss  intelligently  the  high  politics 
of  the  day  while  they  mend  their  nets;  where 
your  plowman  will  talk  philosophy  to  you,  and 
your  gardener  discuss  evolution,  and  your  grave- 
digger  expatiate  upon  predestination;  where  the 


56  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

diker,  building  or  repairing  the  walls  between 
the  fields,  will  take  from  his  pocket  at  meal- 
times his  Latin  grammar,  or  will  read  theology 
in  the  dark  of  the  evening  by  the  light  of  a 
knotted  fir  branch.  Scotland  has  been  rooted 
and  grounded  in  knowledge.  Its  education 
has  not  been  merely  a  cramming  with  facts, 
for  it  has  been  taught  to  think.  Its  education 
has  not  been  a  thing  plastered  on  to  it  from  the 
outside,  but  has  been  the  expression  of  its 
inner  self,  springing  from  a  sense  of  personal 
worth,  and  an  impulse  to  communicate  its 
gifts  to  others.  America  may  justly  make  an 
equal  claim. 

How  shall  we  pay  our  debt  to  such  a  land? 
Obviously,  the  first  answer  must  be  that  if  in 
the  past  she  has  struggled  toward  education  in 
such  fashions  as  those  just  mentioned,  the 
least  we  can  do  is  to  accept  our  inheritance  of 
education  and  be  educated.  Our  land  has 
written;  what  do  you  and  I  read?  She  has 
striven  in  the  sweat  of  her  brow  toward  knowl- 
edge; how  much  and  how  thoroughly  do  we 
know?  But  we  cannot  pay  our  debt  to  our 
land  by  any  theoretical  education.  Efficiency 
is  demanded  of  us,  all  along  the  line  of  labor. 
We  should  be  impatient  of  all  policies  of 
"  muddle  through,"  which  have  cost  some  of 
us  so  dear  in  the  last  five  years,  and  should 
insist  for  ourselves  and  others  upon  good  work- 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      57 

manship  as  the  first  demand  of  industry,  re- 
garding all  questions  of  payment  as  means 
toward  the  grand  end  of  excellent  productivity. 
Lord  Rosebery  has  said  that  "  a  man  who 
breaks  stones  on  the  road  is,  after  all,  serving 
his  country  in  some  way.  He  is  making  her 
roads  better  for  her  commerce  and  her  traffic." 
And  if  a  man  asks  himself  sincerely  and  con- 
stantly the  question,  "  What  can  I  do,  in  how- 
ever small  a  way,  to  serve  my  country?  "  he 
will  not  be  long  in  finding  an  answer.  These 
words  remind  us  of  the  familiar  lines  of  Robert 
Burns : 

"A  wish  that  to  my  latest  hour 
Will  strongly  heave  my  breast, 
That  I  for  puir  old  Scotland's  sake 
Some  useful  plan  or  book  might  make, 
Or  sing  a  sang  at  least." 

To  be  ashamed  of  cheap  success,  and  to 
heighten  our  standard  of  what  success  in  life 
really  means,  to  remember  that  "  the  demands 
of  our  God  are  hard  on  every  human  candidate 
for  a  career"  —  these  things  are  included  in 
the  honest  payment  of  our  debt  to  our  land. 

(3)  Your  land  has  suffered  for  you.  The 
words  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  are  perhaps 
not  too  strong,  when  he  said  of  Scotland: 
"  Poverty,  ill-luck,  enterprise  and  constant 
resolution  are  fibers  of  the  legend  of  this  coun- 


58  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

try's  history.  The  heroes  and  kings  of  Scotland 
have  been  tragically  fated.  The  most  marking 
incidents  in  Scottish  history  —  Flodden,  Darien, 
or  the  '45 —  are  still  either  failures  or  defeats; 
and  the  fall  of  Wallace  and  the  repeated  reverses 
of  the  Bruce  combine  with  the  very  smallness 
of  the  country  to  teach,  rather,  a  moral  than  a 
material  criterion  for  life."  What  is  so  pre- 
eminently true  of  Scotland  is  in  its  degree  true 
of  every  country.  In  large  measure  all  men 
owe  their  lives  to  the  pain  of  their  motherland, 
and  spring  to  life  in  their  own  generation  out  of 
centuries  of  struggle,  self-denial,  and  suffering. 
The  only  way  of  paying  this  particular  debt 
must  be  by  relieving  suffering  as  it  still  remains 
around  us.  We  cannot  go  back  through  the 
centuries  and  minister  to  the  dead;  but  we  who 
are  what  we  are  by  reason  of  their  pain,  nobly 
endured,  must  find  their  heirs  in  those  around 
us  who  are  suffering  to-day.  The  miseries  of 
any  land  are  the  worst  enemies  of  patriotism. 
They  have  in  the  past  called  it  forth,  and  pro- 
duced much  of  the  finest  history  in  doing  so; 
but  that  is  no  excuse  for  any  generation  permit- 
ting them  still  to  torture  fellow  human  beings 
unrelieved.  The  sweet  uses  of  adversity  are 
the  business  of  Providence;  the  business  of 
man  is  ever  to  end  or  to  mitigate  adversity. 
In  our  time  this  is  notoriously  true.  We  all 
know  the  magnificence  of  the  response  that  the 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      59 

working  men  of  the  Allied  Nations  made  to 
the  call  of  the  Great  War,  but  it  is  only  some  of 
us  who  realize  that  in  many  of  our  works  and 
factories  there  is  a  strong  feeling  that  the 
workers  have  nothing  to  defend,  a  feeling  which 
is  sapping  the  very  life  of  patriotism.  Lord 
Curzon  not  long  ago  in  weighty  words  expressed 
this:  "  You  cannot  run  an  empire  on  empty 
stomachs.  You  cannot  sustain  an  empire  with 
discontented  citizens.  You  cannot  preach  an 
empire  to  poverty-stricken  homes.  If  you 
wish  to  call  upon  the  patriotism  and  idealism 
of  the  people,  you  must  consider  how  to  make 
things  easier  for  them  in  the  conditions  of 
their  everyday  life."  The  same  truths  hold  of 
a  republic. 

(4)  Your  land  has  believed.  Great  battles 
have  been  fought  in  every  country  upon  relig- 
ious causes.  It  is  easy  to  see  the  grotesqueness 
of  some  of  these,  and  the  wild  exaggeration  of 
the  importance  of  certain  of  the  points  fought 
for,  yet  the  root  of  it  all  was  faith;  and,  how- 
ever exaggerated  its  expression,  the  priceless 
thing  that  is  to  be  found  in  the  past  is  the  great 
convictions  by  which  men  lived.  Truths  were 
dearer  than  advantages;  truth  was  more  pre- 
cious than  life. 

In  asking  how  this  debt  may  be  paid  back, 
we  are  faced  with  the  question,  What  are  your 
convictions  and  mine?    What  are  we  willing  to 


60  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

live  for  without  compromise  and  without  ques- 
tioning? For  faith  is  ultimately  at  the  root 
of  all  social  problems,  as  it  is  also  at  the  root  of 
character.  It  is  faith  which  makes  the  struggle 
seem  permanently  worth  while,  and  it  is  faith 
alone  in  which  a  land  will  ultimately  remain 
great.  Thus  patriotism,  while  it  does  not  neces- 
sarily involve  the  perpetuity  of  an  ancient  na- 
tional creed,  yet  does  absolutely  demand  that 
every  true  citizen  shall  retain  from  the  past,  and 
express  in  his  own  fashion,  a  sufficient  bed-rock 
of  conviction  to  enable  him  to  build  upon  it  a 
worthy  house  of  life.  The  words  of  Browning 
are  preeminently  applicable: 

"  Here  and  here  did  England  help  me;  how  can  I  help 
England?  say. 
Whoso  turns  as  I,  this  evening,  turn  to  God  to  praise 
and  pray." 

These,  then,  are  the  ways  in  which  it  is  fitting 
that  we  should  repay  our  debt  to  the  past; 
but  while  we  are  making  such  repayments  it  is 
impossible  for  anyone  to  throw  off  the  thought 
of  how  they  came  to  be  due.  They  belong  to 
the  direct  line  of  our  country's  history;  and 
the  noblest  men  in  any  country  do  these  things 
and  cultivate  such  character,  not  merely  as 
men  at  large,  but  as  men  of  a  certain  land  which 
has  laid  upon  them  definite  bonds  of  honor  to 
act  in  these  ways. 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      61 


CHAPTER  III 

Individual  and  National  Morality 

Beneath  the  obvious  ethics  of  the  late 
situation  —  the  broken  treaty  with  Belgium, 
the  atrocities  committed  under  the  name  of 
Rightfulness,  and  the  Pan-German  policy  of 
empire,  with  its  imposition  of  German  kul- 
tur  upon  less  favored  nations  —  there  is  one 
fundamental  difference  of  opinion.  The  ex- 
treme advocates  of  pacificism  applied  the 
precepts  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  with 
rigorous  literalness  to  the  situation  between 
the  warring  nations,  and  denied  that  there  is 
any  distinction  between  individual  and  na- 
tional morality.  The  Prussians,  on  the  other 
hand,  founded  their  whole  polity  on  that 
distinction.  Their  argument  practically  was: 
"  The  laws  of  morality  are  different  for  nations 
from  those  which  govern  men  as  individuals. 
We  are,  in  this  war,  acting  as  a  nation.  There- 
fore we  need  have  no  respect  for  moral  law, 
and  can  do  anything  we  please.' '  The  choice 
between  these  two  positions  is  a  grim  one,  and 
the  problem  of  finding  a  trustworthy  via  media 
is  certainly  one  of  the  most  difficult  tasks  in 
casuistry  that  has  ever  been  presented  to  man. 


62  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

;For  the  Prussian  expression  of  it  we  might 
quote  many  well-known  passages  from  Bern- 
hardi's  book,  Germany  and  the  Next  War,  which 
presented  in  a  popular  form  the  philosophy 
which  dominated  the  national  mind.  Bern- 
hardi  sometimes  hesitates  to  carry  his  principles 
to  their  full  length.  Yet  the  general  argument 
is  quite  clear.  For  the  state  the  one  virtue  is 
power,  the  one  sin  feebleness.  Therefore,  in 
the  end,  everything  is  right  which  gives  or  in- 
creases national  power.  Thus  the  argument 
merges  all  morality  for  a  nation  in  the  one  great 
end  of  war,  namely,  success. 

By  the  way,  Bernhardi  quotes  and  founds 
upon  Machiavelli.  Machiavelli  is  on  much 
surer  ground.  He  is  emphatically  not  ham- 
pered with  a  conscience.  The  Prince  is  secure 
from  all  questions  of  right  or  wrong.  They 
never  once  occur  to  him.  He  is  detached  as  the 
wind  —  the  heartless  wind  which  overturns 
navies,  or  cleanses  cities  from  the  plague. 
Taking  for  his  fundamental  belief  the  baseness 
of  man,  he  goes  on  through  long  stretches  of 
dispassionate  immorality  to  state  his  case: 
"  Therefore  a  prince  cannot,  nor  ought  he,  to 
keep  faith  when  any  such  observance  may  be 
turned  against  him."  "It  is  necessary  for  a 
prince,  wishing  to  hold  his  own,  to  know  how  to 
do  wrong,  and  to  make  use  of  it  or  not  accord- 
ing to  necessity. "     And  so  on. 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      63 

If  Henry  Morley's  explanation  be  correct,1 
surely  we  have  here  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
of  the  ironies  of  history.  According  to  him, 
Machiavelli  wrote  it  all  in  satire.  Personally, 
he  was  and  remained  a  man  keeping  faith, 
loyal  and  poor  all  his  life,  living  decently  in 
the  country  with  his  wife  and  five  children. 
He  wrote  for  the  corrupt  Lorenzo  an  account 
of  what  a  man  like  Lorenzo,  wholly  void  of 
principles,  should  be  and  do,  if  he  "  would  be 
master  of  his  country's  liberties,  and  would 
confound  all  duties  of  the  children  of  men  in 
the  one  object  of  self-aggrandizement."  If 
this  be  so,  truly  there  must  have  been  much 
laughter  of  the  gods  in  the  time  of  the  Seven 
Years'  War. 

But  this  is  beside  the  point.  The  Prussians 
appear  to  have  accepted  Machiavelli  frankly 
and  in  all  seriousness,  as  the  authority  upon 
national  as  contrasted  with  individual  morality. 
If  Bernhardi  could  not  always  go  with  him  all 
the  way,  there  were  plenty  of  others  who  could 
and  did.  The  weakness  of  German  thinking 
before  the  war  was  exaggeration,  It  saw  one 
principle  and  carried  it  out  ruthlessly  to  such 
lengths  that  its  truth  became  a  lie.  It  did  not 
see  it  in  its  relations,  nor  in  the  light  of  any 
modifying  considerations.  But  the  world  is 
not  made  so  simply  as  that.     It  is  very  complex. 

1  See  his  introduction  to  Machiavelli's  History  of  Florence. 


64  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

In  view  of  the  havoc  wrought  by  this  exag- 
geration, it  was  inevitable  that  some  of  those 
who  felt  the  savagery  of  it  all  should  be  tempted 
to  go  to  the  opposite  extreme.  Nothing  could 
be  more  natural  than  the  simple  reversion  to 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  as  the  final  solution 
for  all  such  difficulties.  Take  that  as  the 
Christian  law  for  nations  under  the  present  and 
all  other  possible  periods,  and  you  at  once  end 
all  controversy.  But  this  also  is  too  simple  a 
policy,  and  it  involves  the  misunderstanding 
not  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  alone  but  of 
the  whole  mind  and  speech  of  Jesus.  Those 
who  adopt  it  are  holding  the  sword  of  the  Spirit 
by  the  blade  and  not  by  the  hilt.  Jesus  was 
essentially  a  poet.  When  one  says  that,  some 
people  are  apt  to  shake  their  heads,  as  if  there 
were  an  antithesis  between  poetry  and  truth. 
There  is  indeed  an  antithesis  between  the  poetic 
and  the  pedantic  view  of  things,  and  in  poetry 
literalism  can  never  be  at  home.  The  sensitive 
delicacy  of  thought  and  feeling  which  charac- 
terizes a  poet's  vision  of  things  is  always  liable 
to  perversion  by  the  meticulous.  It  is  impos- 
sible for  some  persons  to  understand  anything 
otherwise  than  in  minute  literalness,  and  there 
seems  to  be  no  argument  that  will  convince  such 
minds.  Christianity  has  suffered  many  things 
from  such  literalists.  For  want  of  allowance 
for    the    poetic    element    in    Christ's    speech, 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      65 

many  who  accepted  his  words  literally  have 
found  themselves  continually  being  led  down 
blind  alleys,  and  filled  with  the  discouragement 
of  constant  and  inevitable  failure.  Others,  re- 
jecting his  words  upon  the  same  fallacy  of 
literalism,  have  passed  by  the  whole  teaching  of 
Christ  as  doctrinaire  and  in  the  clouds.  The 
fact  is  that  life  is  too  complex  for  language,  and 
that  the  poet's  exaggeration  is  the  only  way  in 
which  some  truths  can  be  expressed  at  all. 
This  being  so,  it  is  a  perfectly  justifiable  policy 
to  state  one  side  of  a  truth  so  vividly,  strongly, 
and  exclusively,  as  to  make  sure  that  it  at  least 
will  never  be  forgotten,  and  to  trust  the  intel- 
ligence of  readers  and  hearers  to  understand. 
Thus,  in  the  familiar  parable,  the  mustard 
seed  is  described  as  the  least  of  all  seeds,  but, 
in  order  to  vindicate  the  veracity  of  Jesus,  it  is 
not  necessary  to  search  for  some  unheard-of 
variety  of  mustard  seed  which  is  smaller  than 
the  spore  of  ferns.  The  dogma  of  Transub- 
stantiation  was  invented  by  literalists  because 
Jesus,  before  His  death,  said  of  the  bread  at  the 
last  supper,  "  This  is  my  body."  When  we  are 
told  to  take  no  thought  for  food  or  clothes  or 
any  of  the  exigencies  of  tomorrow,  and  when 
non-resistance  is  enjoined  upon  us  concerning 
property  and  violence,  one  sees  the  vision  of 
an  ideal  world  appearing,  towards  which  the 
spirit  must  ever  strive  to  approach,  but  which 


66  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

cannot  be  completely  entered  here.  It  is  a 
world  of  things  rich  and  strange,  which  draws 
men  after  it,  saving  them  as  they  follow  on. 
But  the  words  in  which  alone  it  can  be  ex- 
pressed are  not  the  words  of  this  world's  usage. 
Other  sayings  there  are,  such  as  that  which  lays 
down  the  hatred  of  father  and  mother  as  a 
necessary  condition  of  discipleship,  which  must 
be  regarded  as  detonating  words  whose  ob- 
ject is  to  stir  men's  thought  and  imagination, 
rather  than  literal  injunctions  involving  the 
reversal  of  any  possible  standards  of  human  life. 
The  literal  appeal  to  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  rests  on  the  ignoring  of  one  great  fact. 
That  fact  is  that,  in  the  present  condition  of 
human  society,  public  and  national  moral 
standards  are  lower  than  those  of  private  in- 
dividuals. Not  only  are  they  lower,  but  they 
must  and  ought  to  be  lower,  if  we  are  to  deal 
justly  with  the  situation.  This  fact  has  been 
expressed  crudely  and  objectionably.  Bishop 
Magee's  saying  is  well  known,  that  "it  is  not 
possible  for  the  state  to  carry  out  all  the  pre- 
cepts of  Christ.  A  state  that  attempted  to  do 
so  could  not  exist  for  a  week."  Mr.  Lecky's 
words  are  not  less  forcible:  "  In  practical  pol- 
itics public  and  private  morals  will  never  ab- 
solutely correspond.  ...  In  different  nations 
[the  national  code]  is  higher  or  lower,  but  it  will 
never  be  the  exact  code  on  which  men  act  in 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      67 

private  life.  It  is  certainly  widely  different 
from  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount."  Such  state- 
ments taken  by  themselves  are  inaccurate  and 
misleading,  yet  they  are  the  attempt  to  express 
forcibly  a  view  which  is  obviously  correct. 
This  is  the  view  which  Mr.  Fielding  Hall  also 
expresses  in  his  saying  that  "  the  government 
is  always  behind  the  soul  of  a  people."  It  is 
this  fact,  startling  as  it  may  be  to  many,  which 
we  must  face  directly  to-day,  if  we  are  to  arrive 
at  any  helpful  teaching  for  the  present  and  the 
future  situation.  Let  us,  then,  first  of  all 
glance  at  a  few  of  the  more  important  reasons 
which  may  be  adduced  in  favor  of  it. 

1.  Public  and  national  morality  must  be 
fixed  mainly  in  accordance  with  the  standard  of 
the  average  man.  National  morality  is  ex- 
pressed in  legislation,  and  it  is  evident  that  just 
and  stable  legislation  must  represent  the  mind 
and  will  of  the  majority  of  the  people.  This  is 
one  of  the  axioms  of  democratic  government. 
But  this  means  that  legislation  can  never  rep- 
resent the  highest  ideals  of  the  highest  men  in  a 
nation.  It  can  only  represent  the  conscience 
of  the  average  man.  To  force  it,  by  introduc- 
ing into  the  statute  book  laws  by  which  the 
saints  of  a  land  try  to  govern  themselves,  is 
always  and  utterly  impossible.  It  is  unjust 
to  the  majority  of  the  citizens,  and  in  this  case 
the  paradox  is  true  —  summajus  summa  injuria. 


68  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

In  practice,  any  legislation  which  could  thus 
be  forced  upon  a  nation  would  be  morally  as 
well  as  politically  disastrous. 

This  becomes  clear  when  we  remember  that 
in  every  nation,  as  things  actually  stand,  there 
are  three  classes: 

(A)  The  idealists  and  saints. 

(C)    The  criminals  and  moral  degenerates. 

(B)  Between  these  two,  and  forming  in  every 
nation  the  vast  majority,  there  is  the  middle 
class,  average  man,  representing  many  shades 
of  opinion  and  practice,  higher  and  lower. 
In  an  autocratic  or  bureaucratic  state,  legisla- 
tion is  forced  upon  the  majority,  and  if  those  in 
power  choose  to  have  it,  so  they  may  enforce 
the  laws  of  the  idealist.  Yet  this  will  always  be 
regarded  as  tyrannical,  and  such  government 
will  never  be  secure.  In  a  democratic  state 
such  legislation  would  not  only  be  tyrannical, 
it  would  be  impossible.  For  the  majority 
make  the  laws,  and  idealistic  laws  are  above  the 
average  man's  present  capacity,  above  his  con- 
victions, above  what  he  understands,  and  con- 
sequently above  his  will.  If,  by  some  coup 
d'etat,  catch  vote,  or  other  such  chance  circum- 
stance, laws  of  this  kind  are  passed,  the  result 
will  necessarily  be  pernicious.  Good  and  stable 
government  must  have  behind  it  the  conscience 
of  the  nation.  There  is  no  greater  curse  than 
that  of  enforced  ideals.     They  lead  directly  to 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      69 

all  manner  of  fraud  and  abuse.  They  corrupt 
legislation  by  making  it  impossible  to  carry  it 
out. 

Illustrations  to  enforce  this  argument  are 
to  be  found  on  all  hands.  On  the  largest  scale 
you  have  the  tragic  spectacle  of  those  nations 
which  have  of  recent  years  attempted  forms 
of  government  which  were  in  advance  of  the 
national  stage  of  moral  progress.  Turkey, 
Persia,  and  Russia  introduced  parliamentary 
government  before  they  were  ready  for  it,  and 
in  each  case  it  has  been  a  notorious  failure. 
China  has  been  experimenting  in  republican 
government,  as  yet  with  like  result.  In  regard 
to  morals,  the  huge  experiment  of  prohibition 
in  the  United  States  only  became  possible  after 
long-continued  and  graduated  experiment  in 
individual  States,  whose  results  convinced  the 
majority  that  the  prohibition  law  was  desirable. 

In  this  I  am  referring  chiefly  to  normal  con- 
ditions in  a  time  of  peace.  In  the  stress  of  war 
much  that  is  abnormal  may  become  necessary 
for  the  time  being,  and  such  measures  as  the 
suspension  of  the  rules  of  trades  unions,  and 
conscription  itself,  may  be  legitimately  enforced. 
But  these  and  other  such  laws  can  only  be 
enforced  in  wartime  in  virtue  of  the  fact  that 
the  country  has  for  the  time  surrendered  its 
right  of  judgment  to  those  whom  it  has  trusted 
with  the  management  of  the  war.     It  is  will- 


70  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

ing  for  the  stress  of  the  moment  to  obey  their 
judgment  implicitly,  but  when  the  war  is  over 
it  resumes  its  own  right  of  legislation.  Of 
course  enforced  temporary  legislation  may 
make  discoveries,  and  may  so  commend  its 
enforced  laws  to  the  general  conscience  that 
they  will  become  permanent  by  vote  of  the 
nation  afterward,  and  this  will  be  one  of  the 
best  fruits  of  any  war.  Still,  the  general 
principle  is  true,  that  in  normal  conditions  the 
only  legitimate  standard  of  legislation  is  the 
will,  not  of  the  elect,  but  of  the  majority, 
the  average  man. 

2.  The  nation  is  the  trustee  for  its  individual 
citizens.  "It  is  probable,"  says  Lecky,  "  that 
the  moral  standard  of  most  men  is  much  lower 
in  political  judgments  than  in  private  matters 
in  which  their  interests  are  concerned."  "  It 
is  always  hazardous  to  argue  from  the  character 
of  a  corporation  to  the  characters  of  the  mem- 
bers who  compose  it."  "  Large  bodies,"  says 
Macaulay,  "  are  far  more  likely  to  err  than 
individuals.  The  passions  are  inflamed  with 
sympathy;  the  fear  of  punishment  and  the 
sense  of  shame  are  diminished  by  partition. 
Every  day  we  see  men  do  for  their  faction  what 
they  would  rather  die  than  do  for  themselves. 
It  is  the  nature  of  parties  to  retain  their  original 
enmities  far  more  firmly  than  their  original 
principles."     Certainly,    all    boards,    commit- 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      71 

tees,  public  companies  —  not  excluding  church 
courts  —  tend  to  act  upon  a  standard  lower 
than  that  of  the  private  individuals  who  com- 
pose them. 

Macaulay  has  adduced  for  this  fact  the  lower 
set  of  reasons,  but  there  are  also  higher  reasons. 
The  trustee  is  bound  by  obligations  from  which 
the  individual  is  free.  Take,  for  example, 
the  question  of  armaments.  Nobody  can  fail 
to  see  the  extravagant  waste  which  these  in- 
volve. Yet  that  waste  has  been  enforced  upon 
the  nations  as  trustees  of  the  safety  of  their 
citizens.  It  may  be  quite  legitimate  for  an 
individual,  obeying  what  he  understands  to  be 
the  highest  law,  to  talk  of  putting  himself  in  a 
defenseless  position,  and  taking  the  risk.  But 
the  nation  is  the  trustee  of  all  its  institutions, 
of  all  its  men,  women,  and  children.  It  can- 
not act  with  the  same  freedom  as  the  individual 
possesses,  for  such  action  may  involve  the 
betrayal  of  the  trust  committed  to  it,  and  no 
crime  is  greater  than  the  betrayal  of  such  a  trust. 
In  such  cases  there  sometimes  will  rise  the 
clash  of  two  consciences — the  conscience  which 
would  make  us  as  individuals  surrender  every- 
thing rather  than  fight  for  our  rights,  and  the 
conscience  which  demands  that  we  shall  protect 
those  whose  defense  has  been  intrusted  to  our 
charge.  Surely  it  is  evident  that  the  latter 
conscience  is  that  which  should  prevail. 


72  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

For  we  are  here  confronted  with  the  whole 
question  of  rights,  and  the  morality  of  insisting 
or  declining  to  insist  upon  them.  The  indi- 
vidual may  find  that  his  highest  ideal  of  conduct 
leads  him  to  renounce  his  rights  in  certain  given 
circumstances.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  a 
nation  is  justified  in  following  a  similar  course. 
The  nation  is  the  guardian  and  trustee  of  the 
individuals  whose  fate  depends  upon  its  action. 
We  are  commanded  to  turn  our  own  cheek  to 
the  smiter,  not  the  cheeks  of  those  whose 
guardians  we  are  pledged  to  be.  To  demand 
that  a  Christian  nation  ought  not  to  claim  its 
rights  and  to  insist  upon  them  is  an  utterly 
immoral  demand. 

3.  National  morality  is  necessarily  clogged 
by  tradition.  It  must  move  slowly,  because  of 
the  accumulated  complexity  of  the  legislative 
machinery,  and  the  far-reaching  relations  of 
each  enactment  with  ancient  institutions  in- 
volving innumerable  individual  cases.  The 
individual  is  free,  as  the  nation  is  not,  to  think 
out  things  for  himself,  to  throw  off  custom  and 
tradition,  and  to  follow  what  new  lines  of  guid- 
ance appeal  to  him  as  right.  In  this  case  it  is 
well  that  the  nation  is  thus  hindered.  At  the 
present  time  we  have  a  large  number  of  clever 
and  influential  individuals  thinking  and  writing 
rather  wildly.  The  nation  may  be  far  behind 
the  best  of  these  in  progressive  morality,  but 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      73 

at  least  its  immobility  is  a  defense  against 
much  dangerous  and  irresponsible  experiment- 
ing. When  men  rush  at  high  speed  from 
one  phase  of  morals  to  another,  and  write 
books  in  advocacy  of  each  phase  as  they  pass 
through  it,  it  is  just  as  well,  for  instance,  that 
the  marriage  laws  of  England,  unsatisfactory 
and  unintelligent  as  some  of  them  are,  neverthe- 
less are  slow  to  change.  The  complications  of 
state  legislation  in  America  offer  an  interesting 
and  relevant  example  here.  Everybody  knows 
the  variety  of  local  laws  in  the  United  States, 
which  makes  it  extremely  difficult  for  anyone 
crossing  the  continent  to  be  sure  that  at  all 
times  he  is  keeping  the  commandments.  Yet 
there  is  a  very  high  value  in  this  somewhat 
extraordinary  state  of  matters,  if  we  regard 
America  as  a  great  laboratory  of  legislation, 
out  of  whose  countless  experiments  there  will 
come  moral  wisdom  for  the  future. 

4.  By  far  the  most  important  reason  for  the 
point  for  which  I  am  arguing  has  still  to  be 
mentioned.  It  is  the  distinction  between  The 
State  and  states.  I  believe  that  it  is  loose 
thinking  round  about  this  particular  point 
which  is  responsible  for  most  of  the  confusion 
and  much  of  the  error  which  have  characterized 
the  discussion  of  this  subject.  Writers  and 
speakers  have  been  in  the  habit  of  talking 
about  "  The  State  "  as  if  it  were  an  entity  as 


74  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

clearly  defined  and  as  definitely  understood  as 
the  individual.  It  has  been  supposed  that 
"  The  State  has  no  determinate  function  in  a 
larger  community,  but  is  itself  the  supreme 
community,  the  guardian  of  the  whole  world 
and  not  a  factor  within  an  organized  moral 
world."  From  this  it  is  but  a  step  to  Bern- 
hardt position,  that  while  the  individual  is 
responsible  to  the  state,  the  state,  being  the 
highest  social  unit,  is  responsible  to  no  one,  but 
demands  the  utmost  service  and  sacrifice  from 
all   individuals. 

The  usual  reply  which  has  been  made  to 
this  by  Christian  opponents  is  the  question, 
— "  Is  there,  then,  no  God  to  whom  The 
State  is  ultimately  responsible?  "  But  that 
is  not  the  matter  at  present  before  us.  All 
such  theory  as  this  which  we  have  quoted 
ignores  the  fact  that  The  State,  about  whose 
powers  and  relations  so  much  controversy  has 
been  waged,  is  a  conception  of  purely  imaginary 
existence.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  The  State  except  in  the  minds  of 
theorists.  The  State  for  each  man  is  really  a 
state,  namely  his  own  nation  and  its  govern- 
ment —  Germany  for  the  Germans,  Britain 
for  the  British,  America  for  the  Americans. 
Public  morality  means  for  each  individual  the 
law  of  his  own  particular  nation.  There  are 
other  nations,  some  of  them  in  rivalry  with 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      75 

his  own,  and  there  is  always  the  possibility 
of  these  rival  national  interests  and  principles 
bringing  the  world  into  a  welter  like  the  present. 
It  is  easy  to  say,  "  Let  all  such  rivalries 
cease."  But  in  dealing  with  rival  states  the 
problem  is  unfortunately  more  complex  than 
that  which  arises  between  individuals.  It  is 
the  duty  of  the  individual  to  be  friendly, 
humane,  and  generous  to  all;  and  he  may 
find  it  to  be  his  duty  to  sacrifice  himself 
for  his  friend,  or  even  for  his  enemy.  But  no 
such  law  of  sacrifice  can  justly  be  applied  to 
states.  That  is  where  all  those  are  in  error 
who,  either  in  America  or  in  England  or  else- 
where, have  advocated  the  policy  of  throwing 
down  defenses,  abolishing  navies,  disbanding 
armies,  and  trusting  to  God.  It  is  easy  to 
be  rhetorical  about  the  nobility  of  perishing 
in  such  a  cause,  if  matters  came  to  the  worst; 
but  the  fallacy  which  underlies  the  whole 
argument  is  precisely  that  of  regarding  sacrifice 
as  a  noble  thing  for  a  nation  in  the  same  way 
as  it  may  be  for  an  individual.  Sacrifice  for  a 
nation  may  simply  be  breach  of  trust.  The 
nation's  first  duty  is  to  defend  its  people  and 
their  interests  against  the  cupidity,  fraud,  or 
violence  of  other  states.  Carried  to  an  un- 
intelligent extreme  this  view  of  national  moral- 
ity will  give  you  on  the  one  hand  the  German 
maxim,    "  Live   dangerously ";    on   the   other 


76  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

hand  it  will  be  expressed  in  such  proposals  as 
those  made  to  the  effect  that  German  trade 
shall  after  the  war  be  excluded  from  all  markets 
of  the  world.  No  one  is  likely  ever  again  to 
adopt  the  former  proposal  seriously.  As  to 
the  latter,  the  futility  of  that  ought  to  be  ap- 
parent. Germany  is  a  living  national  force 
demanding  expansion.  If  you  screw  down  the 
lid  upon  that  boiler  the  future  question  is  only 
one  of  time  —  the  explosion  is  certain. 

But  these  extremes  do  not  falsify  the  princi- 
ple which  they  exaggerate.  While  no  state 
can  be  permitted  to  tyrannize  over  another 
state  in  such  fashions  as  these,  in  virtue  of  its 
stronger  power  —  that  is,  while  there  are 
limits  beyond  which  the  rivalry  of  nations 
must  not  be  allowed  to  go  —  yet  that  rivalry 
is  a  legitimate  and  necessary  fact  which  must 
be  reckoned  with  in  discussing  national  morality. 
The  morality  of  The  State  is  and  must  be  the 
morality  of  a  state,  part  of  whose  moral  ob- 
ligations is  to  hold  its  own  against  other  states. 
This  is  necessarily  a  lower  standard  of  morality 
than  that  of  the  individual,  who  is,  if  he  chooses 
to  be  so,  free  from  such  obligations. 

The  sum  of  this  whole  argument  is  the 
proposition  that  the  standards  of  public  moral- 
ity are  necessarily  lower  than  those  of  individual 
morality,  for  these  four  reasons : 

(1)  The  state  must  legislate  for  the  average 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      77 

man  and  not  for  the  highest  man,  in  order  to 
carry  out  its  essential  principle  that  legislation 
must  be  the  expression  of  the  conscience  and 
the  will  of  the  majority. 

(2)  The  state,  being  the  trustee  of  its  in- 
dividual citizens,  must  make  the  protection 
of  their  rights  its  first  duty. 

(3)  The  state,  being  bound  by  traditions 
from  which  the  individual  is  free,  has  not  the 
same  powers  of  immediate  action  in  new  direc- 
tions. 

(4)  The  State  is  really  a  state,  whose  obliga- 
tions are  not  those  of  private  morality,  but  are 
defined  partly  by  its  relations  to  other  states 
and  its  duty  of  defending  the  rights  of  its  citi- 
zens against  their  aggression. 

All  this  must  be  taken  into  account  when  we 
are  considering  the  present  demand  that  we 
must  Christianize  the  social  order  and  bring 
the  whole  domain  under  the  rule  of  Christ. 
To  that  demand  every  Christian  must  consent, 
but  it  must  also  be  remembered  that  that 
demand  does  not  and  cannot  mean  that  pre- 
cisely the  same  rules  can  at  the  present  moment 
be  applied  to  the  public  as  to  the  private  prob- 
lems of  life. 

Well,  let  us  face  this  situation.  Here  is 
the  state,  whose  moral  standards  are  neces- 
sarily lower  than  those  of  its  best  individuals 
and   which   is   nevertheless   invested   with   an 


78  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

authority  over  these  as  well  as  over  all  others 
of  its  citizens.  This  authority  is  real,  and 
admittedly  legitimate  and  necessary.  Without 
such  authority  the  life  of  the  community  would 
be  impossible,  for  its  function  is  to  insure  justice, 
peace,  and  protection  to  the  individual  citizen 
and  to  defend  his  rights.  But  he  who  expects 
political  and  social  benefits  is  bound  to  expect 
along  with  them  corresponding  political  and 
social  obligations.  We  cannot  all  have  our 
own  way  independently,  or  else  everything 
would  at  once  fall  into  anarchy  and  chaos. 
Each  must  sacrifice  something  of  what  he  con- 
siders to  be  the  best  way  if  there  is  to  be  cor- 
porate life  at  all.  He  may  hold  that  the 
morality  imposed  upon  him  by  the  state  is 
not  so  high  as  to  reach  his  own  individual 
standard,  but  it  is  in  general  his  duty  to  work 
with  it  loyally,  though  for  him  it  is  but  a  second 
best.  While  he  is  accepting  protection  and 
other  state  benefits,  it  is  in  general  his  duty  to 
be  loyal  to  the  state.  He  has,  indeed,  many 
other  loyalties  —  to  his  party,  his  class,  his 
trade  union,  etc.,  each  in  its  own  province  — 
but  he  is  immediately  and  primarily  subject  to 
the  state,  and  must  count  that  the  first  author- 
ity. The  state  cannot,  indeed,  control  or  alter 
his  principles,  but  it  can  determine  his  actions. 
When  his  ideals  are  higher  than  the  state's, 
he  may  still  hold  these,  work  for  the  propaga- 


INTERNATIONAL    CHRISTIANITY    79 

tion  of  them,  and  do  all  he  can  to  leaven  public 
opinion  so  that  the  state  will  ultimately  adopt 
them.  But  meanwhile  it  is  his  duty  in  practice 
to  subordinate  private  opinion  to  loyal  service 
to  the  state. 

It  is  true  that  this  obligation  has  its  limits. 
On  all  questions  of  freedom  in  religious  faith 
and  confession,  the  battle  has  been  fought  out 
and  won  for  the  individual  conscience.  But 
beyond  that  there  is  a  wide  region  within  which 
the  state  may  legitimately  impose  its  inferior 
morality  upon  the  higher  individual  conscience. 
A  recent  author  has  said  that  Christianity 
demands  that  no  man  do  anything  of  which  his 
conscientious  judgment  is  not  persuaded.  This 
statement,  however,  undoubtedly  needs  qualifi- 
cation. A  man  may  be  persuaded  that  the 
drink  traffic  and  war  are  immoral,  and  yet 
may  be  living  in  a  land  where  he  is  forced  to 
enjoy  state  benefits  which  are  paid  for  by  the 
customs  and  excise,  and  the  protection  of  an 
army  for  whose  maintenance  he  pays  taxes. 
These  are  but  two  out  of  many  instances  in 
which  the  public  welfare  demands  the  sub- 
ordination of  private  views.  We  all  have  to 
work  under  many  conditions  which  we  would 
change  if  we  had  power  to  do  so.  Without 
that  power,  which  rests  on  public  opinion,  any 
breaking  off  or  mutiny  is  dangerous  and  may 
imperil  the  state.     Open  rebellion  is  justified 


80  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

only  in  cases  where  it  has  sufficient  backing  to 
give  it  a  reasonable  chance  of  success;  without 
such  a  chance  it  is  simply  murder  and  suicide. 
Private  isolation  is  always  dangerous,  in  that 
it  weakens  the  general  authority  of  the  state. 
An  individual  confronted  with  such  an  alterna- 
tive must  always  ask,  Which  is  the  greater  in- 
jury and  wrong,  to  fall  in  with  a  course  which  I 
as  an  individual  would  not  feel  myself  at 
liberty  to  take,  or  to  injure  or  imperil  the  larger 
interests  by  disaffection?  This  is  an  entirely 
legitimate  question,  for  morality  is,  so  far  as  its 
detailed  precepts  go,  essentially  relative  and 
not  absolute.  The  mere  act  of  killing,  for 
instance,  is  in  itself  neither  right  nor  wrong. 
In  all  ordinary  circumstances  it  is  wrong,  but 
in  self-defense  or  in  the  defense  of  one's  wife  and 
children  it  may  become  not  only  right  but  the 
most  sacred  of  duties.  In  view  of  this  fact  of 
relativity,  it  becomes  the  more  clear  that  in  cer- 
tain cases  where,  in  the  interests  of  public  wel- 
fare, the  state  requires  action  which  would  not 
have  commended  itself  to  the  individual  con- 
science, the  individual  may  and  ought  to  sub- 
ordinate his  own  opinions  to  those  of  the  state. 
In  further  enforcement  of  this  view  it  may 
be  added  that  there  is  always  the  possibility 
that  the  conscientious  opinion  of  the  individual 
may  be  mistaken.  In  a  pretty  wide  reading  of 
the  transactions  of  recent  tribunals  I  have  often 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      81 

been  reminded  of  that  old  Scottish  moderator 
who  prayed,  "  0  God,  grant  that  we  may  be 
right,  for  thou  knowest  that  we  are  very  posi- 
tive. "  Self-will  is  apt  to  personate  conscience, 
and  it  can  do  this  so  subtly  as  to  deceive  the  very 
elect.  In  an  hour  of  conflict  like  the  Great 
War,  surely  the  moral  issues  are  so  stupendous 
that  the  individual  objector  may  well  pause 
before  setting  up  his  private  judgment  against 
the  safety  of  his  nation  and  the  triumph  of 
righteousness  over  unspeakable  wrong. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  considering  things  as 
they  are  and  have  been :  let  us  now  turn  to  the 
consideration  of  things  as  they  may  yet  become. 
In  discussing  the  reasons  for  our  assertion  that 
the  standards  of  public  morality  are  lower  than 
those  of  private  morality  we  found  the  strong- 
est of  these  reasons  to  lie  in  the  fact  that  there 
is  no  such  concrete  thing  as  The  State,  but  only 
a  state  in  rivalry  with  other  states.  Is  there, 
then,  no  way  in  which  it  might  be  possible  to 
materialize  The  State,  and  so,  by  removing  or 
restricting  the  element  of  rivalry,  to  raise  the 
standard  of  public  morality  toward  that  of  the 
highest  individual  conscience?  It  is  an  ancient 
hope  and  a  persistent  one.  Above  all  the 
actual  states,  with  their  allied  or  conflicting 
interests,  floats  ever  the  dream  of  the  City  of 
God,  the  ideal  state.  Plato's  Republic,  Augus- 
tine's  City   of  God,    More's     Utopia,    Bacon's 


82  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

New  Atlantis  —  these  and  many  other  such 
idealisms  of  the  corporate  life  of  men  upon  the 
earth  have  handed  down  the  undying  hope  to 
those  who  to-day  are  attempting  to  forecast 
the  reconstruction  of  society.  Perhaps  the 
most  significant  of  them  all  is  Dante's  De  Mon- 
orchia, that  great  plea  for  a  single  universal 
temporal  monarchy,  coexistent  with  the  spiri- 
tual monarchy  of  the  church.  It  was  his  way 
of  conceiving  the  true  imperialism,  supra- 
national and  with  divine  sanctions  —  an  im- 
perialism in  which  one  nation  should  no  longer 
grudge  nor  refuse  the  welfare  of  another  nation, 
but  all  should  cooperate  for  the  larger  well-being 
of  the  world. 

To-day  that  dream  is  again  shining  before 
the  eyes  of  men.  It  has  been  conceived  in 
vague  and  misty  shapes,  expressing  itself, 
sometimes  simply,  in  the  cry  for  an  end  of 
wars.  Again  it  would  embody  itself  in  such 
conceptions  as  a  federation  of  European  na- 
tions, a  union  of  English-speaking  peoples,  an 
international  police  which  shall  limit  arma- 
ments, and  use  force  only  to  prevent  any 
nation  from  preparing  itself  to  break  the  peace 
and  attack  a  weaker  nation.  Perhaps  the 
most  obvious  form  which  it  took  was  the  sug- 
gestion that  the  entente  cordiale  and  its  allies 
should  form  themselves  into  a  permanent 
nucleus;  and  this  developed  into  the  still  larger 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      83 

conception  of  a  League  of  Nations,  to  which 
even  Germany  in  time  might  come  in,  for  the 
doing  of  justice  and  the  consideration  of  claims. 
We  shall  deal  with  this  subject  in  a  later  lec- 
ture. The  War  is  over  and  the  League  is  as 
yet  an  unrealized  dream,  although  we  have  the 
promise,  and  some  of  us  still  have  the  hope,  of 
its  realization.  Of  one  thing  we  may  be  very 
sure:  national  life  and  national  moralities 
will  remain,  and  patriotism  will  always  be  one 
of  the  supreme  forces  in  the  development  of 
the  human  race.  Yet,  while  that  seems  clear, 
it  does  appear  to  be  possible  that  something 
larger  may  emerge,  capable  of  restraining  pa- 
triotism from  its  dangerous  tendencies  toward 
war,  and  at  the  same  time  capable  of  determin- 
ing international  relations  authoritatively. 

It  is  true  that  even  in  this  supra-national 
center  of  authority  the  government  will  still 
remain  "  behind  the  soul  of  the  people/'  and 
public  standards  of  morality  will  continue  to 
be  lower  than  those  of  the  highest  individuals. 
Yet,  for  the  questions  it  has  to  decide,  the  new 
authority  will  be  able  to  reach  far  nearer  to  the 
level  of  the  individual  conscience  than  any  one 
state  can  possibly  reach  to-day.  When  state 
rivalry  is  eliminated  from  the  highest  authority, 
much  that  is  noblest  in  the  consciences  of 
individual  men  will  come  to  its  own.  In  this 
way  the  conception  of  The  State  as  the  supreme 


84  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

authority  may  be  realized.  It  will  not  indeed 
be  regarded  as  supreme  in  the  sense  in  which 
Prussia  conceived  it,  without  reference  to  God; 
but  it  will  be  regarded  as  supreme  in  the  sense 
that  it  will  be  subservient  to  God  alone.  It 
will  not  be  supreme,  as  the  Prussian  state  is, 
under  the  master  idea  of  power,  in  consequence 
of  which  it  became  the  monstrous  and  bloody 
idol  in  whose  worship  men  and  nations  lost 
their  souls.  It  will  not  even  be  supreme  under 
the  master  idea  of  justice,  as  most  states  have 
professed  to  be  in  modern  times.  Love  will 
be  its  master  ideal.  How  such  a  future  is  to  be 
brought  about,  it  is  not  yet  possible  to  prophesy, 
but  it  is  surely  high  time  to  think.  It  does 
seem  as  if,  in  view  of  such  hopes,  we  were  mov- 
ing toward  the  fulfillment  of  the  great  promise 
that  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  shall  become 
the  Kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  of  his  Christ.  For 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  in  its  ultimate  realiza- 
tion is  just  a  form  of  society  in  which  the 
highest  individual  ideals  are  at  last  made  ap- 
plicable to  public  institutions. 

The  most  important  practical  question  for 
us  all  in  this  connection  is  the  question,  What 
are  the  forces  that  can  be  used  to  raise  the 
standard  of  public  morality  nearer  and  nearer 
to  the  standard  of  private  morality?  And  the 
answer  is  that  if,  along  the  whole  line  of  our 
interests  and  efforts,  we  were  all  to  take  this 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      85 

as  a  conscious  aim,  there  is  not  a  single  existing 
institution  which  might  not  be  used  as  a  means 
toward  the  desired  end.  As  individuals  we 
all  have  high  responsibility  for  this,  primarily 
by  adopting  the  highest  possible  ideals  for  our 
own  character  and  so  indirectly  leavening 
society,  and  then  by  propaganda  which  will  in 
every  legitimate  way  forward  and  spread  those 
higher  conceptions  of  life  by  which  we,  indi- 
vidually, have  chosen  to  live.  The  church  is 
supposed  to  stand  for  the  highest  idealism  in 
the  direction  both  of  public  and  private  charac- 
ter, but  it  would  be  well  if  the  church  were  more 
consciously  to  adopt  this  policy,  and  to  state 
more  clearly  both  to  itself  and  to  the  public 
its  definite  aim  at  the  raising  of  public  moral- 
ity nearer  to  the  standards  of  private.  The 
Church  must  ever  work  for  the  most  part  upon 
individuals.  But  it  should  bear  in  mind  that 
the  Government  shall  be  upon  the  shoulder  of 
its  Lord.  While,  like  its  Master,  it  must  often 
refuse  to  interfere  in  political  disputes  directly, 
yet  it  is  its  duty  so  to  influence  individuals  as 
to  bring  His  principles  ultimately  to  bear  upon 
the  state.  The  press  will  always  wield  a  mighty 
influence  for  good  or  evil  in  all  such  matters, 
and  an  incalculable  amount  of  good  might  be 
done  through  the  press  if  it  were  definitely  to 
pledge  itself  to  these  aims.  The  newspaper  is 
not  a  device  for  the  amusement  of  the  people, 


86  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

a  chessboard  on  which  the  game  of  popular 
politics  is  played.  It  is  a  wonderful  instrument 
of  education,  which  may,  if  it  so  choose,  bring 
the  noblest  ideals  home  to  the  conscience  of  the 
nation.  As  regards  the  state,  while  it  is  true 
that  legislation  can  never  venture  far  above 
the  average  morality  of  the  nation,  yet  it  may 
always  tend  to  go  above  rather  than  below  that 
average.  The  State  should  be  Adventurer  as 
well  as  Administrator,  within  certain  limits  of 
possible  advance.  The  temptation  of  all  pol- 
iticians is  to  appeal  to  the  baser  side  of  their 
constituents,  or  at  least  to  the  side  which  is 
morally  more  commonplace  and  less  ideal. 
They  should  regard  themselves  not  merely  as 
servants  but  as  educators  of  the  people;  and 
in  doing  so,  they  will  certainly  be  excused  if 
they  go  judiciously  beyond  their  election  pro- 
grams instead  of  falling,  as  is  so  often  the  case, 
lamentably  below  them.  Probably,  however, 
the  strongest  of  all  the  forces  that  may  be  used 
toward  these  high  ends  is  that  of  education  in 
schools  and  universities.  We  have  seen  in 
Germany  but  too  terrible  an  example  of  the 
degradation  of  the  standards  of  public  morality 
being  systematically  carried  on  in  an  education 
which  aimed  at  the  fostering  of  the  crudest  kind 
of  illegitimate  patriotism.  Let  the  schools 
give  clear  teaching  upon  this  and  cognate  sub- 
jects, and  set  the  mind  and  conscience  of  every 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      87 

adolescent  citizen  at  work  upon  them,  and 
there  is  no  question  that  the  distance  between 
the  standards  of  public  and  private  morality 
might  be  enormously  diminished  within  even 
one  generation. 

In  these  and  many  other  ways  it  is  possible 
to  go  a  great  length  in  this  direction,  and  no 
duty  could  be  more  pressing  at  the  present  time. 
There  is,  as  we  have  stated,  the  most  serious 
danger  in  attempting  to  force  ideals;  but  there 
is  an  equally  serious  duty  and  necessity  for 
cultivating  them  most  assiduously.  The  King- 
dom of  heaven  is  an  ideal  which  tends  to  draw 
all  men  after  it  if  their  eyes  are  kept  looking  in 
its  direction,  and  the  supreme  duty  of  all  who 
have  influence  upon  others  of  whatever  kind 
is  to  direct  their  eyes  thitherward. 

NOTE  l 

In  discussing  the  question  of  public  and 
private  morality  we  have  presupposed  the 
normal  conditions  of  a  time  of  peace.  In  war 
everything  suddenly  becomes  abnormal.  New 
moral  values  and  judgments  are  introduced  and 
old  ones  abrogated,  so  that  in  many  instances 
the  crimes  of  peace  become  the  virtues  of  war. 
This  need  not  surprise  us.  It  is  an  axiom  of 
ethics  that  all  the  detail  of  moral  precepts  is 
necessarily  relative  and  dependent  upon  the 
circumstances  of  the  case.     In  war  many  of 


88  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

the  relations  of  individuals  to  one  another  are 
reversed  and  abnormal,  and  the  detailed  appli- 
cation of  the  precepts  of  morality  are  changed 
accordingly.  To  bring  about  such  a  change 
is  the  heaviest  moral  responsibility  possible  to 
man.  Those  who  provoke  war,  or  wage  it  with- 
out moral  necessity,  are  guilty  of  an  unspeak- 
able crime.  The  rest  must  accept  the  situation 
for  which  the  aggressor  alone  is  responsible,  and 
act  on  the  new  principles  which  it  evolves. 

Yet  here  again  the  German  habit  of  exag- 
geration must  be  combatted.  War  does  not 
reverse  all  moral  principles.  There  remains  a 
morality  of  war.  Germany  has  disavowed  any 
such  morality.  She  has  swept  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments and  all  the  Christian  virtues  over- 
board, and  boasted  of  the  principle  that  any- 
thing is  legitimate  which  leads  to  victory. 
That  is  the  course  which  ruined  Germany.  We 
have  seen  that  to  legislate  upon  the  standard 
of  the  idealists  and  saints  is  disastrous;  but  to 
legislate  upon  the  standard  of  the  criminals 
and  moral  degenerates  is  devilish. 

It  is  true  that,  in  such  an  ethical  upheaval 
as  war  produces,  it  is  extremely  difficult  to 
draw  the  line  and  fix  the  standard  of  the  interim 
applications  of  morality  to  details.  All  pre- 
vious Peace  Conferences  and  International  Con- 
ventions have  been  trying  to  do  this,  with  the 
curious  result  that  they  have  given  the  impres- 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      89 

sion  rather  of  associations  for  redefining  the 
rules  of  war  than  for  establishing  peace.  All 
the  results  that  they  have  achieved  were  calmly 
disregarded  by  Germany,  who  went  on  with 
her  gas,  her  Zeppelin  attacks  upon  civilians, 
her  bombardment  of  unfortified  cities,  her 
sinking  of  unarmed  ships,  her  inhuman  cruel- 
ties practiced  in  the  name  of  frightfulness,  and 
her  cynical  dismissal  of  a  sacred  treaty  under 
cover  of  the  "  Scrap  of  Paper  "  epigram.  In 
this  she  was  consistent  in  the  thoroughness  of 
her  reversal  of  moral  standards.  Yet  all  the 
civilized  world  repudiates  and  disclaims  her 
conception  that  war  has  no  standards  of  mor- 
ality left  to  it  at  all.  Where  then  can  we  find 
such  standards? 

I  believe  we  owe  them  to  the  playing  grounds 
of  our  public  schools.  The  one  principle  that 
remains  firm  in  the  hearts  of  all  the  noblest  of 
the  fighting  men  is  that  of  sportsmanship.  It 
is  true  that  this  will  never  yield  a  perfectly 
consistent  code  which  may  be  written  out  in 
black  and  white,  like  the  terms  of  an  interna- 
tional agreement;  yet  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  in  the  whole  of  life  such  compromises  are 
continually  necessary.  Life  reaches  out  be- 
yond all  our  theories  and  judgments  of  it,  and 
the  only  absolutely  consistent  persons  are  some 
of  the  inhabitants  of  our  lunatic  asylums,  who 
carry   their   fixed   idea  ruthlessly   out   to   its 


90  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

furthest  ends.  The  great  principle  of  our  boys' 
and  young  men's  morality  is  that  of  playing 
the  game.  It  is  the  one  unfailing  appeal  to 
any  audience  of  British  or  American  young 
men.  It  is  an  unwritten  law  and  probably  an 
unwritable  one.  But  it  is  deep  in  these  na- 
tions' hearts.  We  were  proud  of  it  in  the 
sports  of  former  days,  but  we  never  dreamed 
that  it  would  count  for  so  much  in  the  most 
tragic  hour  the  world  has  ever  seen. 

NOTE  2 

When  we  come  to  consider  the  League  of 
Nations  we  shall  see  that  that  is  the  most 
considerable  attempt  that  the  world  has  ever 
made  toward  the  realization  of  the  ideal  of 
drawing  up  the  standard  of  public  to  that  of 
private  morality.  We  must  not,  however, 
count  entirely  to  that  agency,  but  must  defi- 
nitely set  before  us  the  aim  of  this  unification,  in 
our  education  both  in  schools  and  universities, 
and  as  part  of  the  new  program  of  the  church. 
The  moral  development  of  nations  must  ever 
be  attained  through  the  patient  handling  of 
individuals,  until  public  opinion  has  been  af- 
fected. Owen  Wister  and  Benjamin  Kidd 
have  shown  how  amazingly  the  ideals  of  the 
German  nation  could  be  changed  for  the  worse 
within  one  generation  by  systematic  education. 
It  must  also  be  remembered  that  Prussia  has 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      91 

had  only  two  hundred  years  of  civilization,  as 
compared  with  the  many  centuries  through 
which  Britain  and  America  have  been  learning 
the  same  lesson.  Now,  we  must  all  together 
accept  it  for  our  steady  aim,  to  work  out  high 
national  ideals  through  individual  consciences, 
by  means  of  the  inculcation  of  a  high  standard 
of  honor  in  all  the  relations  of  life.  Such  ex- 
periments as  the  modern  coordinate  school  and 
the  Woman's  Auxiliary  Army  Corps,  which  ap- 
peared to  many  conventional  minds  so  daring 
as  to  be  dangerous,  have  already  proved  them- 
selves extremely  successful  in  introducing  high 
standards  as  to  the  relations  of  the  sexes. 
The  system  in  schools  and  colleges  which  sub- 
stitutes, as  far  as  that  is  possible,  trust  for 
supervision,  has  met  with  the  same  success. 
It  is  to  be  hoped  that  through  these  and  similar 
agencies  there  may  be  implanted  in  the  rising 
generation  a  contempt  for  "  graft,"  and  a  sense 
of  the  vital  necessity  for  honor  whether  it  seems 
to  pay  or  not,  which  may  work  wonders  upon 
the  public  life  of  future  days.  All  such  at- 
tempts are  bound  to  meet  with  opposition  from 
people  who  will  either  say  that  this  or  that  sys- 
tem has  never  been  used  before,  or  who  will 
foredoom  any  such  attempt  by  the  dogmatic 
assertion  that  it  will  not  work.  To  the  former, 
one  may  reply  confidently  that  if  it  were  true 
that  such  attempts  have  not  been  tried  before, 


92  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

then  the  sooner  they  are  begun  the  better;  to 
the  latter,  pointing  to  the  results  of  experiments 
already  tried,  we  are  able  already  to  reply  that 
such  systems  do  work. 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      93 


CHAPTER  IV 

A  League  of  Nations 

The  eyes  of  the  whole  world  have  been  turned 
of  late  to  the  construction  of  a  League  of  Na- 
tions, which  would  be  the  perfect  realization 
of  the  conception  of  the  state  discussed  in  the 
last  lecture,  and  the  perfect  form  toward  which 
all  the  minor  attempts  at  that  realization  which 
we  have  already  noted  would  finally  merge. 
The  Conference  of  Paris  has  come  and  gone, 
and  the  League  of  Nations  is  included  in  the 
Treaty  of  Peace.  In  the  confused  and  tran- 
sition stage  of  the  world's  history  through  which 
we  are  passing,  there  is  a  widespread  tendency 
to  regard  the  League  of  Nations  enterprise  as 
a  failure.  Some  look  upon  it  as  already  a 
dream  of  the  past,  while  others  look  forward  to 
the  future,  expecting  a  speedy  end  to  all  its 
high-sounding  promise.  I  am  bold  enough  to 
believe  that  so  far  from  being  in  any  sense  a 
failure,  it  has  already  been  able  to  establish  in 
the  conscience  of  the  world  a  new  set  of  demands 
that  shall  never  again  be  forgotten,  and  to  point 
toward  an  altogether  unprecedented  set  of  pos- 
sibilities for  the  fulfiling  of  these  demands.    The 


94  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

subject  is,  of  course,  an  extremely  wide  one,  and 
all  that  is  proposed  in  this  present  lecture  is  to 
point  out  some  general  considerations  which 
are  apt  to  be  overlooked,  and  yet  without  which 
the  idea  of  the  League  cannot  be  understood. 
I  shall  not  attempt  to  deal  with  the  economic 
side  of  this  vast  question,  but  shall,  rather,  con- 
fine myself  to  that  which  directly  concerns  war 
and  peace.  The  economic  developments  must 
largely  be  left  to  shape  themselves  as  the  need 
for  such  adjustment  arises  from  time  to  time. 

The  first  thing  to  note  about  the  League  of 
Nations  is  that  it  is  not  only  an  unusual  but  a 
unique  conception.  By  this  I  do  not  mean 
merely  to  reiterate  the  well-known  words, 
"  The  world  has  dreamed  of  lasting  peace 
before,  but  wishing  for  it  is  one  thing,  willing  it 
another. "  Apart  from  this  fact  that  the  world 
has  come  to  a  further  stage  in  the  definiteness  of 
its  determination  to  achieve  this  thing  and  to 
achieve  it  now  if  it  be  possible,  there  are  es- 
sential differences  in  the  thing  itself  from  any- 
thing else  that  has  ever  been  before  the  judg- 
ment of  the  world. 

The  issues  are  to-day  at  once  simpler  and 
more  complex  than  they  have  been  in  any  of  the 
former  various  peace  proposals  and  discussions 
that  have  taken  place.  All  that  has  ever  been 
said  against  an  inconclusive  peace  holds  good 
now.     The  terms  of  peace  were  indeed  stern, 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      95 

but  not  more  so  than  was  absolutely  necessary, 
in  view  of  the  spirit  of  the  enemy.  Nations 
recover  from  great  catastrophes,  and  there  is  no 
security  for  the  future  without  the  absolute 
defeat  of  that  spirit  in  the  Central  Powers 
which  was  responsible  for  this  war.  When  that 
spirit  has  changed,  many  things  may  be  altered 
and  many  relaxations  made;  but  until  that 
change  has  taken  place  these  would  be  not  only 
premature  but  supremely  dangerous. 

In  considering  the  uniqueness  of  the  present 
League  of  Nations  we  must  also  remember  that 
this  is  not  the  time  for  following  precedents  but 
for  making  them.  The  hour  of  history  and  the 
conditions  of  the  world  are  unique,  and  the 
arrangements  which  must  be  made  for  these 
must  be  equally  so.  We  have  not  been  fighting 
merely  Prussian  militarism,  but  the  whole  sys- 
tem of  international  diplomacy  and  ideals  which 
has  obtained  throughout  the  past  among  Euro- 
pean nations. 

The  League  of  Nations  has  sometimes  been 
regarded  as  a  repetition  of  the  Holy  Alliance. 
There  is  no  ground  for  this  whatever,  except 
the  entirely  unreal  one  that  both  attempts 
claimed  to  have  for  their  object  the  final  ending 
of  war.  But  the  league  which  was  formed  after 
the  fall  of  Napoleon  by  the  sovereigns  of  Russia, 
Austria,  and  Prussia,  had  nothing  in  common 
with  the  present  League.     It  was  nominally 


96  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

formed  to  regulate  the  relations  of  the  states 
of  Christendom  by  the  principles  of  Christian 
charity,  but  it  soon  proved  to  have  for  its  real 
object  the  preservation  of  the  power  of  the 
existing  dynasties.  Its  collapse  and  failure 
have  no  bearing  whatever  upon  the  fate  of  the 
present  League.  Again,  General  Smuts,  be- 
fore he  had  accepted  the  League  idea  and 
worked  it  out  into  his  very  remarkable  and 
able  draft  in  detail,  stated  on  one  occasion  that 
the  British  Commonwealth  was  the  only  League 
that  has  ever  existed.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
British  Commonwealth  is  as  radically  different 
from  the  League  of  Nations  as  the  Holy  Alli- 
ance itself  was.  Again,  in  many  utterances  of 
distinguished  men  one  has  found  statements 
to  the  effect  that  the  nations  included  in  the 
group  of  the  entente  and  its  allies,  if  they  were 
to  band  themselves  permanently  together, 
would  realize  the  idea  of  the  League  of  Nations. 
Such  statements  are  the  result  of  an  inadequate 
grasp  of  the  unique  elements  in  the  present 
League,  and  they  have  thrown  much  confusion 
upon  the  whole  subject.  It  is  quite  true  that 
any  such  groups  of  nations  as  might  be  allied 
together  in  the  British  Commonwealth,  or  in 
the  band  of  the  entente  and  its  allies,  or  in  the 
English-speaking  races,  or  in  an  alliance  between 
America,  France,  and  Britain,  would  be  valu- 
able in   the  highest   degree,   but   they  would 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      97 

be  valuable  only  as  a  basis  for  further  and  more 
complete  union.  If  America,  France,  and 
Britain  definitely  set  their  hearts  upon  the 
realization  of  the  League,  it  will  at  once 
become  possible,  and  to  the  extent  to  which 
these  three  nations  have  accepted  the  idea 
it  has  become  possible  already ;  but  any  partial 
alliance  of  whatever  kind  can  only  insure  the 
possibility  of  permanent  peace  by  leading  on 
to  that  fuller  union  of  the  League  of  Nations 
which,  as  we  have  already  said,  is  unique. 

The  great  question  which  the  League  is 
facing  is  the  end  of  war.  President  Wilson 
has  said  that  "  The  people  of  the  world  want 
peace,  and  they  want  it  now,"  and  has  called 
the  ending  of  war  "  This  final  enterprise  of 
humanity."  Wars  have  always  hitherto  ended 
in  compromise,  and  it  has  been  the  chronic  mis- 
take of  nations  and  of  men  to  imagine  that  that 
compromise  was  the  final  solution.  In  1853 
there  was  a  firm  conviction  in  England  that 
war  was  over  forever.  In  1854  the  Crimean 
War  broke  out.  Dr.  Clifford  has  pointed  to  the 
failure  of  all  those  enterprises  which  in  the 
past  have  sought  to  end  war.  Commerce  has 
been  again  and  again  trusted  to  fulfill  this  end, 
and,  in  such  conspicuous  instances  as  the  Cru- 
sades and  the  International  Exhibition  of 
1851,  it  has  tended  rather  to  create  wars  than  to 
end  them.     Anarchism  has  been  advocated  by 


98  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

Tolstoy  and  others  as  the  one  agent  that  can 
accomplish  the  great  end,  and  the  present 
tendency  in  some  quarters  is  towards  a  colossal 
repetition  of  past  experiments  in  anarchy. 
It  is  amazing  that  any  intelligent  man  can 
look  in  that  direction  for  such  an  end.  The 
whole  of  history  and  the  very  make  of  human 
nature  proclaim  its  futility.  Disarmaments 
have  been  attempted  in  various  nations,  and 
international  conferences  such  as  that  of  The 
Hague  have  been  held,  but  these  were  swept 
overboard  by  the  great  wave  that  broke  in 
1914  upon  the  world.  The  lesson  of  all  these 
facts  is  this,  that  "  the  one  thing  that  will 
produce  disarmament  is  a  sense  of  security, 
and  the  League  of  Nations  will  produce  that." 
It  is  for  lack  of  a  sense  of  security  that  all 
attempts  to  end  war  hitherto  have  failed,  and 
nothing  which  is  not  able  to  restore  and  per- 
petuate that  sense  of  security  need  attempt  that 
mighty  task. 

When  we  come  to  consider  the  League  of 
Nations  with  a  view  to  ascertaining  what  those 
elements  are  that  make  it  unique,  and  encourage 
us  to  hope  from  it  for  results  which  no  past 
attempt  has  been  able  to  secure,  we  touch  the 
heart  of  the  whole  business.  It  is  free  from  all 
party  cries  of  any  kind,  for  it  has  been  adopted 
by  Laborists,  Radicals,  Old  Liberals,  Union- 
ists,  and   Conservatives   in   Britain,    and   by 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY      99 

many  of  the  leading  minds,  both  Republican 
and  Democratic,  in  America.  Further,  it  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  principles  or 
the  policy  of  pacifism,  for  its  chief  advocates 
have  been  men  who  not  only  believed  that  the 
Great  War  was  the  duty  of  the  nations  which 
sought  to  defend  the  liberties  of  the  world,  but 
actually  undertook  much  responsibility  for  the 
management  of  that  war.  In  one  sense  we  are 
all  pacifists.  No  sane  man  who  knows  the 
facts  could  be  found  who  would  advocate  war 
as  such,  and  who  does  not  desire  the  final 
ending  of  it.  But  in  another  sense  there  are 
many  of  us  who  believe  that  pacifism  has  been 
among  the  greatest  hindrances  to  peace  that 
the  world  has  had  to  reckon  with,  and  that 
the  War  itself,  as  circumstances  were  at  the 
time,  was  the  only  road  by  which  the  world 
could  travel  toward  any  peace  which  would  be 
either  just  or  permanent. 

The  two  main  points  on  which  to  concentrate 
attention  in  seeking  for  the  unique  character 
of  the  League  of  Nations  are: 

1.  The  Universal  Pooling  of  International 
Interests. L 

lThe  word  "  pooling  "  needs  to  be  guarded  from  misunder- 
standing. It  does  not  necessarily  imply  the  merging  of  all 
the  national  interests  and  defensive  forces,  nor  the  removal 
of  these  from  the  command  of  the  nations  which  contribute 
them.  It  means  the  uniting  of  them  for  a  common  purpose 
upon  winch  all  are  agreed. 


100  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

2.  A  Common  Armed  Force  for  Policing  the 
World. 

1.    The     Universal     Pooling    of    International 
Interests 

President  Wilson  said  in  Manchester  that 
"  the  United  States  of  America  will  join  no  com- 
bination of  power  which  is  not  a  combination 
of  all  of  us."  When  he  said  that,  it  was  im- 
possible for  him  or  for  anyone  to  foresee  how 
very  complicated  and  difficult  a  matter  such 
a  universal  combination  is.  The  lesson  of  the 
past  months  is  not  that  it  is  impossible  ever  to 
hope  for  such,  but  a  profound  conviction  that 
it  must  necessarily  come  gradually,  and  that  it 
cannot  by  any  possibility  be  rushed.  While 
we  fully  admit  that,  and  in  virtue  of  it  wait  in 
hope  for  the  ultimate  consummation,  yet  we 
must  not  forget  that  until  the  League  is  com- 
plete and  all  civilized  nations  are  included  in  it, 
it  cannot  really  exist  at  all,  nor  can  the  results 
of  its  imperfect  beginnings  be  fairly  judged. 
Until  all  the  peoples  are  united  it  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  safe  to  complete  the  work  of  disarma- 
ment. We  all  remember  the  groaning  and 
dismay  with  which  we  viewed  the  spectacle 
year  by  year  of  enormously  increasing  arma- 
ments and  saw  no  end  to  it  except  universal 
financial  ruin  or  a  stupendous  war.  The  war 
has  come,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  world 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    101 

has  learned  its  lesson.  If  we  are  going  to  dis- 
arm, or  even  if  we  are  going  to  cease  the  mad 
rivalry  of  former  days  in  national  armament, 
we  must  have  security  against  aggression.  All 
armaments  are  either  a  guard  or  a  threat  to 
frontiers.  The  one  and  only  safeguard  in 
this  matter  will  ultimately  be  found  to  be  the 
universal  pooling  of  national  armaments. 

This  definitely  implies  that  Germany  sooner 
or  later  must  be  brought  into  the  League  of 
Nations.  Until  she  and  all  other  great  na- 
tions have  joined  it,  the  League,  as  we  have 
already  stated,  will  not  yet  begin  to  exist. 
At  the  same  time  we  must  go  on  preparing  for 
it.  It  cannot  possibly  be  born  in  a  day,  but 
must  come  gradually  and,  as  it  were,  piecemeal ; 
and  it  will  take  great  patience  and  calm  wisdom 
of  judgment  to  see  this  imperfect  instrument 
gradually  being  constructed,  and  to  expect  from 
it  little  or  no  result  until  it  is  complete. 

For  very  obvious  reasons  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  admit  Germany  to  it  as  yet.  Under 
the  old  regime,  Bethmann  Hollweg  on  Novem- 
ber 9,  1916,  said,  "  Germany  is  ready  at  all 
times  to  join  the  Union  of  Peoples  and  even  to 
place  herself  at  the  head  of  such  a  Union  as  will 
restrain  the  disturber  of  peace  "  —  a  statement 
which  being  otherwise  translated,  meant  sim- 
ply, "  Will  you  walk  into  my  parlor?  said  the 
spider  to  the  fly."     It  is  perhaps  unnecessary 


102  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

now  to  remind  ourselves  that  this  was  the  man 
who  had  already  acquired  notoriety  as  the 
author  of  the  "  Scrap  of  Paper "  epigram. 
At  the  time  when  he  uttered  the  proposal 
above  quoted,  Turkish  Pan-Turanianism  was 
destroying  its  million  and  a  half  of  Armenians, 
preparations  were  on  foot  to  carry  Belgian 
citizens  by  the  thousand  into  slavery,  uni- 
versity students  from  Britain  were  already  at 
work  in  German  salt  mines,  and  a  virulent 
propaganda  was  being  actively  conducted  both 
in  Italy  and  America.  The  subsequent  Brest 
Treaty  showed  the  value  of  any  such  offer  as 
Bethmann  Hollweg's.  The  fact  is  that  in  that 
offer  the  German  chancellor  had  not  meant 
the  same  thing  as  the  American  President. 
It  is  well  known  that  Germany  has  always 
hated  internationalism  in  the  past,  and  it 
is  impossible  to  conceive  imperial  Germany 
in  any  true  League  of  Nations.  In  1918, 
Erzberger  constructed  a  sketch  of  a  League  of 
Nations  which  would  have  satisfied  him.  That 
was  just  before  the  final  defeat  of  Germany, 
and  when  it  was  examined  it  turned  out  to 
be  no  League  of  Nations  at  all,  but  simply  a 
sketch  of  German  terms  of  peace. 

Now,  let  us  clearly  face  the  situation.  In 
such  matters  as  these  there  can  be  no  word  of 
letting  bygones  be  bygones.  We  are  dealing 
with   the   most   frightful    dangers    to    unborn 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    103 

generations  in  every  country,  and  any  senti- 
mental forgiveness  would  be  an  unchristian 
and  insane  forgiveness.  Here,  as  everywhere 
else,  conversion  must  be  demanded  as  a  condi- 
tion of  forgiveness.  Nations  may  be  converted 
as  well  as  individuals.  Germany  was  con- 
verted to  the  principles  that  led  her  to  her  doom 
within  two  generations,  as  we  have  seen.  She 
must  be  brought  back  to  such  a  state  of  mind 
as  will  make  it  either  safe  or  righteous  to  en- 
trust her  with  the  responsibilities  of  a  place  in 
the  League  of  Nations,  before  any  well-wisher 
to  humanity  could  venture  to  propose  her 
admission. 

There  are,  indeed,  signs  that  such  conversion 
has  begun,  and  these  should  be  welcomed  and 
cherished  in  every  possible  way.  The  German 
people  have  discovered  the  delusions  which 
had  been  put  upon  them,  and  there  seems  to  be 
a  very  true  reaction,  accentuated  by  defeat  and 
shame  and  a  desire  to  think  and  act  differently, 
on  the  part  of  some  of  her  former  spokes- 
men. When  that  is  completed,  when  Germany 
has  found  a  form  of  government  which  may  be 
relied  upon  for  future  stability,  and  when  the 
new  Germany  has  given  evidence  of  good  faith 
and  good  will  —  then,  and  not  till  then,  can  the 
League  of  Nations  be  made  complete.  Sup- 
posing that  in  the  meantime  preparations  for 
it  have  gone  forward  as  they  have  already  been 


104  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

planned  in  Paris,  we  may  hope  that  when  the 
time  shall  come  for  the  entrance  of  Germany, 
the  League,  including  all  the  civilized  nations 
of  the  world,  will  suddenly  prove  an  effective 
instrument  for  guarding  the  world's  peace 
forever. 

America  also  must  come  in.  I  am  anxious 
to  avoid  all  questions  of  American  party  pol- 
itics, but  yet  I  trust  I  may  be  permitted  to  say 
a  few  words  on  this  momentous  question.  For 
her  own  sake  America  must  come  in.  She 
lives  under  the  beneficent  shadow  of  such  men 
as  Washington  and  Lincoln,  and  their  spirit 
lives  on  in  her.  But  these  were  men  of  the  far 
horizon.  They  were  not  local  politicians,  but 
world-statesmen.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive 
of  these  men  staying  apart  from  this  universal 
ideal,  which  would  make  impossible  for  ever 
such  evils  as  those  which  they  devoted  their 
lives  to  end.  As  to  the  future,  no  man  can  see 
far  into  the  years,  nor  anticipate  the  destinies 
of  nations.  Yet  certain  it  is  that  no  land  on 
earth  can  long  remain  in  isolation.  The  dawn 
is  ominous,  and  the  morrow  will  bring  new 
combinations  and  massed  forces  against  which 
a  united  civilization  must  be  prepared  to  stand. 
Even  for  her  own  sake  America  must  come 
in — but  how  much  more  for  the  world's  sake! 
No  alliance  which  other  nations  might  achieve 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    105 

could  be  effective  without  her.  To  tell  the  other 
allies  to  go  on  with  the  League  of  Nations  upon 
their  own  account  is  to  ask  for  an  impossibility. 
Without  America  there  can  be  no  League  of 
Nations.  Its  universality  is  its  unique  char- 
acteristic without  which  it  can  never  exist. 

The  reasons  for  America's  hesitation  are  not 
only  intelligible,  but  many  of  them  are  entirely 
reasonable.  Any  fair-minded  judge  can  under- 
stand her  reluctance  to  have  European  powers 
interfering  with  her  action,  say,  in  such  affairs 
as  her  relations  with  Mexico.  Still  more  can 
we  understand  her  refusal  to  send  troops  across 
the  world  to  aid  in  settling  every  little  difference 
between  European  or  Asiatic  states.  But  all 
that  is  asked  is  that  in  case  of  local  disputes  all 
the  world  shall  declare  itself  against  the  ag- 
gressor, not  that  all  the  world  shall  take  action 
and  resort  to  arms.  In  cases  where  the  matter 
in  dispute  is  small,  there  will  be  no  call  nor  need 
for  universal  action:  and  if  any  matter  should 
assume  world-wide  proportions,  America  will 
never  hesitate  to  play  her  part. 

One  sometimes  hears  phrases  which  are 
courteously  intended,  but  which  seem  to  me 
to  be  dangerous.  Britain  and  her  European 
allies  are  told  that  in  their  hour  of  need  America 
was  glad  to  come  to  their  help,  but  now  that 
the  danger  is  over  she  would  not  further  inter- 
fere with  their  affairs,  but  would  retire  and  no 


106  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

longer  hamper  them  in  their  settlements. 
Americans!  my  brothers!  when  men  talk  like 
that  I  fear  your  courtesy  more  than  I  have  ever 
feared  your  blame.  This  whole  situation  is 
misunderstood  by  such  speakers,  and  they  do 
not  realize  the  meaning  of  the  universal  League. 
The  League  of  Nations  is  not  interference;  it 
is  the  union  of  the  world. 

As  to  the  detail  of  possible  joint  action  which 
may  be  involved,  I  do  not  wonder  at  your 
hesitation,  especially  as  the  decision  has  come 
upon  you  at  so  very  difficult  a  time.  No 
British  man  who  knows  the  situation  will 
misunderstand  or  grudge  you  the  most  volu- 
minous examination  and  discussion  of  the  points 
involved.  Viscount  Grey's  letter  voices  in 
magnificent  clearness  and  truth  the  best  mind 
and  feeling  of  British  men.  As  to  the  ultimate 
result  of  your  deliberations  I  cannot  and  I  do 
not  entertain  any  doubt  whatever. 

2.  A    Common  Armed  Force   for  Policing    the 
World 

In  the  late  war  the  nations  came  together 
for  the  defense  of  the  world,  each  bringing  as 
much  as  by  the  strongest  measures  it  could 
induce  or  compel  into  its  service.  But  how 
clumsy,  how  late,  and  how  costly  a  business  it 
all  was!  and,  above  all,  how  illimitable!  Each 
nation  stretched  out  after  the  last  man  she 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    107 

could  secure,  and  no  one  knew  how  many 
would  be  needed  before  the  end.  The  new 
idea  which  has  come  to  us  with  the  League 
of  Nations  is  that  it  shall  be  made  effective 
by  a  sea  and  land  police  force,  armed  with  all 
the  most  powerful  weapons  procurable.  Four 
things  are  necessary  for  this  force.  First,  it 
must  be  made  irresistibly  strong,  so  that  no 
private  individual  national  enterprise  would 
dream  of  competing  with  it.  Second,  it  must 
be  recruited  by  volunteers  only,  the  volunteers 
being  drawn  from  each  nation  up  to  the  limit 
of  a  quota  fixed  by  all.  Third,  munitions  and 
arms  for  arming  this  force  must  be  produced 
only  in  national  arsenals,  and  all  manufacture 
or  sale  of  these  by  private  firms  or  companies 
must  be  abolished.  Fourth,  the  international 
police  force  must  always  be  mobilized  and 
ready  to  check  the  first  beginnings  of  aggression 
upon  the  shortest  possible  notice.  Such  a 
police  force  would  exclude  national  jealousy, 
for  all  interference  with  the  existing  conditions 
of  any  nation  would  be  done  at  the  initiative, 
not  of  a  rival  nation  or  group  of  nations,  but  of 
the  world. 

Many  points  of  difficulty  confront  the  League 
of  Nations,  and  we  need  not  be  surprised  at 
that.  Anything  conceived  on  such  a  huge 
scale  must  necessarily  be  difficult.     Where  so 


108  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

many  minds  and  interests  are  involved,  and 
so  many  men  are  educated  and  prejudiced  in 
various  opposing  directions,  we  need  not  look 
for  an  easy  task  in  the  reconstruction  of  the 
world.  On  the  whole  the  progress  that  has 
been  made  is  surprising,  and  if  people  every- 
where will  be  patient  and  far-seeing  enough  to 
take  the  large  view  and  concentrate  on  the 
essential  elements,  the  thing  may  be  done 
sooner  than  many  of  us  expect. 

The  first  point  of  difficulty  that  used  to  be 
urged  against  it  was  the  opposition  of  France, 
which  was  expected  and  prophesied.  We  need 
not  now  go  into  that  belated  subject  further 
than  to  remind  ourselves  that  it  was  looked 
upon  by  many  as  an  insuperable  barrier  at  the 
outset,  and  that  it  absolutely  disappeared. 

The  second  point  of  difficulty  was  in  con- 
nection with  the  strategic  points  of  the  world. 
Take  the  British  strategic  points  for  example. 
Under  the  conception  of  pooled  interests  and  a 
limited  international  police,  it  might  be  ex- 
pected that  Britain  would  be  asked  to  give  up 
her  sole  control  of  Gibraltar,  Suez,  and  other 
such  points,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  a 
League  of  Nations  could  possibly  be  brought 
into  being  except  upon  a  basis  of  the  interna- 
tionalizing of  these.  In  view  of  such  a  possi- 
bility it  should  be  remembered  that  Britain 
is  not  asked  to  give  up  any  such  points  to  an- 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    109 

other  nation  or  to  a  group  of  nations,  but  to 
merge  them  in  a  supernational  control  in 
which  she  retains  her  own  share.  It  would  be 
impossible  to  bring  forward  any  valid  reason 
why  this  sacrifice,  if  it  is  to  be  regarded  as 
sacrifice,  should  not  be  made.  Nor  would 
it  be  in  any  real  sense  a  loss  to  Britain.  From 
such  points  as  the  Rock  of  Gibraltar,  much  of 
their  significance  has  already  been  taken  away 
by  the  invention  of  aircraft  and  submarines. 
In  regard  to  the  surrender  to  the  International 
League  of  the  Suez  Canal,  it  is  to  be  remembered 
in  compensation  that  the  Kiel  and  the  Panama 
Canals  must  come  under  the  same  principle  of 
internationalization.  In  fact,  on  all  such  sub- 
jects we  are  apt  to  transfer  to  the  details  of  the 
new  situation,  conceptions  to  which  we  have 
been  accustomed  under  the  old.  Were  the 
nations  in  rivalry  as  they  are  to-day,  then  no 
loyal  British  man  would  consent  for  a  moment 
to  the  surrender  of  any  strategic  point:  but 
if  the  world  can  be  unified,  and  that  unity 
permanently  secured  by  the  arrangements  of 
this  League,  that  alters  the  matter  entirely. 
It  would  then  be  no  longer  in  the  interest  of 
any  nation  to  claim  exclusive  rights  in  the 
strategic  points  which  were  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  it  of  old. 

A  third  difficulty  that  has  often  arisen  in 
the  minds  of  men  is  that  of  the  relative  status 


110  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

of  the  great  navies  of  the  world.  In  this  re- 
spect our  very  victory  has  threatened  British 
naval  supremacy,  It  has  been  said,  "  If  Brit- 
ain could  write  into  international  law  the  power 
of  destroying  hostile  and  neutral  commerce, 
which  it  did  in  1916,  then  no  European  power 
could  dispute  with  her."  The  revelation  that 
the  British  navy  gave  to  Britain  the  power  of 
life  and  death  over  other  nations  awakened 
the  world  to  a  new  view  of  things  which  was 
extremely  far-reaching  and  has  already  had 
consequences.  To  every  naval  power  it  may 
seem  strange  and  disconcerting  that  the  League 
of  Nations  should  propose  a  pooled  navy  for 
the  maintenance  of  the  world's  peace,  in  which 
it,  like  the  rest  of  the  powers,  should  only  have 
a  share.  However  large  that  share  might  be, 
some  will  fear  that  it  could  not  awaken  the 
sentiments  which  are  so  dear  to  seafaring  na- 
tions and  which  have  expressed  themselves  in 
so  much  of  poetry  and  prose  in  their  literature. 
But  the  facts  must  be  faced.  Without  the 
League,  in  the  rivalries  of  future  years,  one  can 
only  look  forward  to  ruinous  competition  in 
rival  shipbuilding  for  the  purposes  of  war, 
whose  immediate  effect  would  be  financial  dis- 
aster, and  whose  ultimate  end  loses  itself  in 
sheer  horror.  Under  the  League  each  Power 
would  require  a  naval  quota  proportionate  to 
the  demands  of  its  physical  and  political  geog- 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    111 

raphy.  Thus  the  naval  requirements  of  each 
nation  of  the  world  would  be  limited  within 
reasonable  compass.  There  would  be  no  rival- 
ries in  shipbuilding,  and  yet  the  pooled  navies 
would  be  amply  sufficient  for  all  possible  con- 
tingencies that  might  ever  arise. 

A  fourth  point  of  difficulty  which  has  often 
been  urged  against  the  League  of  Nations  is 
that  of  those  who  tell  us  that  any  such  ar- 
rangement is  going  to  substitute  cosmopolitan 
for  patriotic  ideals.  In  a  former  lecture  we 
have  already  discussed  this  point,  and  main- 
tained that  patriotism  must  always  remain 
the  most  powerful  and  commanding  of  large- 
scale  social  ideals.  Among  other  reasons  for 
this  belief  it  was  there  stated  that  the  cosmo- 
politan ideal  gives  us  a  unit  too  large  and  vague 
to  raise  anything  equivalent  to  the  enthusiasm 
associated  with  patriotic  loyalty.  Here  it 
need  only  be  added  that  there  is  no  such  abso- 
lute contrast  between  patriotism  and  cosmo- 
politanism as  is  sometimes  supposed.  The 
leading  advocates  of  the  League  of  Nations 
are  among  the  foremost  patriots  of  their  time, 
and  they  evidently  intend  that  the  patriotic 
ideal  must  still  remain  strong  as  ever  in  the 
new  cosmopolitan  arrangement.  Dr.  Clifford 
has  said  that  "  each  nation  will  remain  inde- 
pendent, self-determining,  sovereign  and  free, 
save   in    those   matters    expressly   and   freely 


112  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

given  up  on  entering  the  compact  of  interna- 
tional comity.'5  In  other  words,  the  League  of 
Nations  proposes  to  pool  the  national  interests 
only  for  specific  purposes,  and  leaves  the  es- 
sential nationality  of  each  intact.  "  The  ques- 
tion is  not  really  between  nationalism  and 
internationalism,  but  between  disorderly  and 
orderly  internationalism.' '  We  have  been  try- 
ing in  the  past  to  solve  international  problems 
with  national  machinery,  and  that  must  always 
fail.  By  passing  over  to  the  international 
League  some  matters  which  were  formerly 
nationally  managed,  we  shall  each  surrender 
something,  but  we  shall  gain  infinitely  more, 
and  all  those  causes  which  have  incited  pa- 
triotic loyalties  in  the  past  will  continue  to 
render  his  own  country  dear  to  every  man  of 
good  will  and  right  mind.  The  new  arrange- 
ment will  certainly  cost  each  nation  something, 
but  sooner  or  later  we  must  all  learn  that  the 
words,  "  He  saved  others,  himself  he  cannot 
save,"  apply  to  nations  as  well  as  to  individual 
men;  and  it  will  ultimately  be  found  that  the 
only  possible  salvation,  even  for  oneself,  is 
to  be  achieved  through  the  saving  of  others. 

As  regards  America,  this  aspect  of  the  ques- 
tion presents  some  extremely  difficult  and  in- 
tricate problems,  bearing  upon  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States.     The  new  proposals  have 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    113 

appeared  to  some  to  give  ultra-democratic 
powers  to  America's  representation  in  the 
League  of  Nations.  It  is  not  for  me  to  express 
any  opinion  on  such  matters,  which  are  outside 
my  province  or  my  knowledge.  I  admit  that 
on  such  vital  questions  the  utmost  care  and 
the  fullest  deliberation  are  imperative.  Yet 
I  may  be  permitted  to  remark  that  one  of  the 
chief  glories  of  the  League  is  its  adaptability, 
and  that  some  way  can  be  found  of  so  arrang- 
ing matters  as  to  safeguard  America  from  any 
such  danger  to  her  Constitution.  Certainly 
you  will  not  find  us  or  any  of  your  allies  slow 
to  understand  the  delicacy  of  the  situation. 

But  the  end  in  view  is  so  colossal,  so  vital  to 
the  well-being  of  every  nation  and  of  the  world, 
that  I  am  certain  the  true  heart  and  resolute 
conscience  of  America  will  not  fail  to  find  means 
for  so  supreme  an  end.  The  world  trusts  you 
for  this:  it  is  the  greatest  trust  that  has  ever 
been  committed  to  you  in  all  your  history. 

After  all  these  considerations  have  been  dis- 
cussed there  remains  one  which  is  in  the  end 
overwhelmingly  the  greatest  point  to  be  con- 
sidered on  this  subject:  What  is  the  alternative 
to  the  League  of  Nations?  We  admit  that  be- 
fore the  League  can  come  into  operation  it  will 
have  to  encounter  immense  difficulties,  but 
this  is  a  case  in  which  huge  difficulty  is  con- 
fronted by  blank  impossibility.     Without  the 


114  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

League,  the  situation  of  the  world  is  absolutely 
desperate.  In  the  first  place  there  are  such 
considerations  as  those  which  have  been  already 
touched  upon  regarding  the  rivalries  between 
the  navies  of  different  nations,  and  the  ruinous 
cost  of  competition  in  construction.  Then 
there  are  many  side  issues,  like  that,  for  in- 
stance, of  Zionism,  and  the  occupation  of 
Palestine  by  the  Jews.  It  is  probable  that 
some  arrangement  will  be  made  whereby 
Mr.  Arthur  Balfour's  forecast  will  be  fulfilled, 
in  which  he  gave  his  sanction  to  the  prospect  of 
a  national  settlement  of  the  Jews  in  Palestine. 
This  cannot,  of  course,  mean  that  all  the 
thirteen  and  a  half  millions  of  Jews  will  remove 
to  Palestine  and  occupy  its  territory,  but  it 
probably  will  mean  that  Jerusalem  will  become 
in  some  sort  the  Jewish  headquarters  for  the 
world,  uniting  the  scattered  fragments  of 
Judaism  not  only  into  a  religious  but  a  political 
whole.  Palestine  is  the  focus  of  the  world 
geographically.  It  is  the  center  whence  Jewish 
influence  in  future  days  could  immediately 
touch  all  the  continents  of  the  eastern  hemi- 
sphere. A  concentrated  national  power,  backed 
by  the  enormous  wealth  which  would  be  repre- 
sented by  the  Jewish  headquarters  at  Jerusalem, 
might  easily  become  a  grave  menace  to  the 
future  peace  of  the  world.  Various  safeguard- 
ing measures  have  been  proposed,  but  it  is  very 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    115 

questionable  whether  these  would  have  any 
adequate  or  permanent  power  to  check  such 
dangers  as  might  arise.  Under  a  League  of 
Nations  a  concentration  of  Jewish  influence  in 
Palestine  would  be  safe,  because  it  also  would 
form  part  of  the  League,  and  would  share  with 
the  rest  of  the  nations  at  once  their  responsi- 
bilities and  their  limitations.  Without  that 
we  might  soon  find  that  we  were  facing  a  new 
and  serious  danger. 

The  insidious  and  almost  world-wide  spread 
of  Bolshevism  is  another  fact  that  must  be 
reckoned  with  in  the  immediate  future.  It  is 
a  secret  power,  as  yet  little  known.  On  the 
one  hand  it  is  feared  by  many  as  a  power  that 
threatens  life,  liberty,  and  humanity  in  general. 
On  the  other  hand  many  welcome  it  as  the 
liberator  of  the  world.  For  my  own  part,  with- 
out necessarily  fixing  upon  the  whole  system 
the  worst  crimes  which  have  been  committed  in 
its  name,  it  appears  to  be  a  system  under 
which  the  powers  of  government  are  com- 
mitted to  those  elements  in  the  community 
which  are  least  qualified  to  use  them  in- 
telligently. Of  this  at  least  there  can  be  no 
question,  that  at  the  present  time  it  is  an  inter- 
national and  world-wide  influence.  As  yet  it 
can  only  be  dealt  with  in  each  nation  according 
to  that  nation's  lights  and  powers.  There  is  no 
unity  in  the  world's  attitude  to  it  or  plan  for 


116  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

dealing  with  it.  Surely,  it  is  evident  that  the 
only  way  in  which  the  world  can  either  judge  it 
justly  or  defend  itself  against  its  attack,  must 
be  by  some  international  and  world-wide  in- 
stitution such  as  the  League  of  Nations. 

There  is  also  the  question  of  the  next  war. 
Mr.  H.  Stead  has  quoted  responsible  opinion 
to  the  effect  that  the  expenditure  upon  arma- 
ments after  the  Great  War  will  be  ten  times 
as  large  as  it  was  before.  We  have  already 
touched  upon  this  often  but  it  is  impossible  to 
give  any  adequate  conception  of  the  meaning  of 
it.  Without  the  League  of  Nations,  the  next 
war  will  come.  There  is  no  alternative  what- 
ever between  universal  disarmament  to  the  ex- 
tent which  the  League  proposes,  and  ultimate 
war.  The  status  quo  is  not  now  a  living  alterna- 
tive :  it  cannot  be  maintained  for  a  day.  But 
if  a  next  war  does  come,  it  will  be  beyond  all  the 
power  of  words  to  describe  its  horror.  It  has 
been  said  that  "  another  world-war  would 
mean  the  extinction  of  civilization,"  and  the 
words  are  not  too  strong.  Science  has  not 
completed  its  work  in  rendering  war  terrible. 
When  the  armistice  was  proclaimed,  it  seemed 
that  science  was  only  on  the  threshold  of  infinite 
discoveries  in  destruction.  The  League  of 
Nations  bristles  with  difficulties,  but  surely 
there  is  no  one,  unless  he  be  possessed  with 
suicidal    mania,     who    would    not     prefer    to 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    117 

accept  it,  however  difficult,  rather  than  to 
accept  the  destruction  of  the  world.  Now 
is  the  moment,  as  Viscount  Grey  has  said, 
when  "  the  world  must  learn  or  perish."  The 
prospect  is  more  dismal  than  Dante's  Inferno, 
if  wars  are  to  go  on  increasing  in  ferocity 
upon  the  earth.  For  such  a  life  it  is  not 
worth  while  to  breed  children  in  any  land. 
It  was  well  worth  while  to  breed  them  and 
send  them  forth  upon  one  glorious  sacrifice 
which  would  save  the  world  to  the  end  of  time ; 
but  if  that  sacrifice  is  to  be  in  vain,  and  the 
destruction  of  each  generation  in  its  youth  is 
to  be  the  normal  and  continually  repeated 
prospect  of  our  homes,  then  it  were  better  that 
the  race  should  perish  at  once  from  the  earth. 
There  is  a  danger  to-day  of  our  having  the 
trophies  of  victory,  but  the  battle  lost.  Those 
who  will  think  carefully  over  the  present  situa- 
tion will  agree  with  Sir  Edward  Grey  that  "  the 
past  struggle  is  in  vain  if  the  League  of  Nations 
is  not  secured."  Therefore  this  League  is  in 
the  strictest  sense  practical  politics;  indeed, 
it  is  the  only  practical  politics  before  the  judg- 
ment of  the  world.  In  December,  1918,  Mr. 
Wilson  said  in  London  that  while  at  first  he  had 
been  accused  of  being  academic  in  his  interest  in 
the  League,  now  we  find  the  practical  leading 
minds  of  the  world  determined  to  get  it.  No 
such  constancy  and  unity  of  purpose  has  ever 


118  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

been  witnessed  in  the  world  before.  As  time 
goes  on  we  see  more  clearly  the  new  difficulties 
and  complexities  that  arise,  but  it  is  our  first 
duty  not  to  let  these  arising  difficulties  blind 
our  eyes  to  the  momentous  issues  which  we 
are  facing  in  the  immediate  future. 

It  is,  however,  in  connection  with  Christian- 
ity that  we  reach  the  highest  ground  for  con- 
sidering the  League  of  Nations.  The  Prince 
of  Peace  is  still  the  Lord  of  the  world,  and  it  is 
in  the  light  of  his  will  that  all  considerations  of 
peace  must  finally  be  judged.  Had  the  church 
demanded  a  patched-up  peace,  as  some  claimed 
that  she  ought  to  have  done,  during  the  last 
five  years,  she  would  have  betrayed  Chris- 
tianity. Now  she  will  betray  it  if  she  does  not 
forward  the  influence  of  the  League  of  Nations, 
for  this  is  essentially  a  Christian  ideal.  Indeed, 
it  is  the  only  Christian  ideal  before  us  at  the 
present  time.  The  spirit  expressed  in  the 
balance  of  power  and  in  secret  diplomacy  was 
essentially  a  selfish  and  unchristian  spirit, 
which  every  now  and  again  suddenly  revealed 
itself  as  an  unblushing  worship  of  the  devil. 
We  have  experimented  with  all  the  ideals  of 
paganism.  In  the  League  of  Nations  we  are 
coming  back  at  last  to  Christ,  to  see  whether 
the  world  may  not  learn  of  him.  As  we  shall 
see  in  a  future  chapter,  the  League  of  Nations 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    119 

indorses  the  wider  church  outlook  which  has 
long  been  expressed  in  her  foreign  mission 
enterprise.  The  alternatives  before  the  world 
are  either  Christ  or  a  godless  civilization,  which 
is  infinitely  worse  than  any  heathenism.  The 
League  of  Nations  definitely  accepts  the  golden 
rule  as  the  law  of  its  being  and  the  object  of  its 
labors.  One  of  your  countrymen  has  said,  "  We 
are  actually  adopting  the  ideal  of  the  world- 
wide Kingdom  of  God  as  a  national  policy, 
pledging  our  Republic  to  the  unselfish  teachings 
of  the  Son  of  Man."  There  never  was  a  time 
when  Christianity  had  so  remarkable  an  indorse- 
ment from  the  best  political  authorities  as 
today.  In  theory  the  church  has  given  her 
sanction.  Now  is  the  time  for  practice.  If  she 
is  to  show  herself  a  living  force  in  the  present 
generation,  she  must  not  only  agree  to  but  must 
champion  this  great  ideal. 

Against  all  this  it  is  sometimes  urged  that 
the  tendency  to  war  is  characteristic  of  human 
nature,  and  that  on  this  account  there  is  no 
real  chance  of  the  end  of  wars  upon  the 
earth.  Longinus  long  ago  asserted  that  " strife 
is  good  for  mortals,"  and  Bernhardi  has  most 
abundantly  indorsed  his  statement.  There  will 
always  be  two  types  of  mind  upon  this  subject. 
It  has  been  said  that  to  Napoleon  war  was  a 
splendid  game,  while  to  Wellington  it  was  a 
stern  duty  to  be  got  through  as  quickly  as 


120  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

possible.  But  that  it  is  an  essential  element  in 
human  nature,  which  can  never  be  eradicated 
or  replaced,  is  an  assertion  which  runs  contrary 
not  only  to  the  whole  genius  of  Christianity 
but  to  any  scientific  view  of  the  evolution  of 
the  race.  To  those  who  on  any  ground  believe 
in  an  ultimate  decency  of  things,  war  is  neces- 
sarily doomed.  To  those  who  believe  in  an 
intelligent  and  realizing  way  in  Christianity, 
the  question  resolves  itself  into  a  very  simple 
issue.  We  may  grant  a  certain  truth  to  the 
assertion  that  war  is  inherent  in  human  nature, 
which  derives  this  among  its  many  mingled 
inheritances  from  the  brute;  but  we  must  ask 
the  further  question,  Is  Christ  or  is  he  not  a 
match  for  human  nature?  Can  he  manage  it, 
and  lead  it  out  from  the  slime  of  its  origins 
into  the  nobility  of  its  destiny?  Upon  that 
question  depends  our  belief  in  the  failure  or 
success  of  Christianity.  For  believers  in  Christ, 
to  ask  that  question  is  already  to  answer  it. 
We  have  ground  for  believing  that  there  is  a 
limit  to  the  reign  of  brute  human  nature,  that 
Christ  transcends  it,  and  that  His  ideals,  which 
have  already  conquered  its  cruder  forms,  will 
ultimately  triumph  over  all  things  and  lead 
mankind  out  into  the  glory  and  nobility  of  the 
sons  of  God. 

Hitherto  we  have  only  treated  of  the  League 
of  Nations  on  its  negative  side,  as  a  movement 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    121 

which  has  for  its  object  the  end  of  war.  It 
remains  to  be  pointed  out  that  this  is  by  no 
means  its  only  content  and  intention.  In  its 
positive,  as  contrasted  with  its  negative  as- 
pects, it  has  still  a  closer  alliance  with  Chris- 
tianity. No  Christianity  which  is  merely 
negative  is  worthy  of  the  name.  Christ's 
great  contention  with  the  Pharisees  was  for  a 
positive  as  contrasted  with  a  negative  faith. 
To  be  a  Christian  is  not  to  be  a  man  who  does 
not  do  this  and  that,  although  there  have  been 
those  whose  main  idea  of  Christian  manhood 
was  a  catalogue  of  things  which  it  would  not 
permit  a  man  to  do.  It  is  only  when  we  come 
past  the  negative  out  into  the  positive  side  of 
Christianity  that  we  see  it  in  its  rich  fullness 
and  promise;  and,  all  along  the  line,  the  League 
of  Nations  strives  to  keep  pace  with  it  in  this. 
It  aims  not  merely  at  the  end  of  war  between 
nations,  but  at  the  establishment  of  love  and 
good  understanding.  Intelligently  conceived, 
it  deals  not  merely  with  alliances  and  treaties, 
but  with  the  spirit  which  underlies  all  such 
agreements.  It  would  establish  good  will  as 
the  foundation  of  all  relations,  and  it  would 
interpret  the  brotherhood  of  nations,  not 
merely  in  the  sense  of  tolerance  and  the  absence 
of  aggressive  wrong-doing,  but  as  a  positive 
friendship  and  intercommunion  for  the  purposes 
of  mutual  aid   and   the  furtherance  of  each 


122  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

other's  interests.  One  of  the  consequences  of 
this  positive  spirit  is  that  it  proposes  to  deal 
with  the  economic  and  industrial  problems  of 
the  world,  and  to  deal  with  them  from  this 
point  of  view.  In  all  these  ways  it  is  seeking 
not  a  negative  end  merely,  but  the  positive 
establishment  of  good  relations;  and  in  doing 
this  it  is  showing  itself  to  be  imbued  with  the 
essential  spirit  of  Christianity  as  revealed  by 
Jesus  Christ. 

It  will  be  obvious  that  the  task  it  has  set 
itself  is  indeed  a  most  comprehensive  and  far- 
reaching  one.  It  is  no  wonder  if,  with  such 
ends  in  view,  the  new  order  will  take  some 
time  to  find  itself  and  establish  its  position. 
When  one  feels  overwhelmed  and  discouraged 
by  the  thought  of  so  gigantic  a  program,  it 
is  a  comforting  reflection  that  the  League  of 
Nations  is  not  conceived  as  a  thing  fixed  and 
stationary.  Lord  Robert  Cecil  has  pointed 
out  one  of  its  greatest  merits,  in  his  explana- 
tion that  it  is  an  elastic  conception,  which  may 
be  modified  so  as  to  deal  with  new  situations 
and  requirements  as  they  arise.  Its  first  task 
will  probably  be  to  codify  international  law  in 
a  more  complete  and  authoritative  fashion 
than  that  in  which  it  has  been  already  codified 
by  Fiore  or  by  Borchard  or  by  The  Hague  Con- 
ferences of  1899  and  1907.  Even  if  its  codifica- 
tions were  complete  —  which  they  are  not  — 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    123 

they  would  still  remain  in  need  of  sanctions 
which  would  be  able  to  enforce  them.  Such 
sanctions  the  League  of  Nations  provides,  as 
we  have  already  seen ;  and  its  elasticity  enables 
it  to  face  the  future  in  the  confidence  that,  as 
new  contingencies  arise,  it  will  be  able  in 
virtue  of  its  universality  and  its  safeguards  to 
face  these  also. 

There  are  some  who  imagine  that  they  have 
only  to  speak  the  word  "  Utopia  "  in  order 
to  discredit  any  such  scheme  as  this.  Their 
attitude  has  perhaps  been  provoked  by  those 
who  have  in  the  past  coquetted  with  ideals, 
and  recklessly  uttered  high-sounding  words. 
Utopia  may  either  stand  for  ev  toVos  or  ov  tottos  — 
"  the  place  of  well-being  "  or  "  the  place  that 
does  not  exist."  For  my  part  I  am  not  afraid 
of  the  word,  nor  of  the  power  of  God  in  his  prov- 
idence to  call  things  that  are  not  as  though  they 
were,  and  so  to  create  them.  When  in  faith 
Christian  men  are  sufficiently  daring  to  trust 
God  to  that  extent,  they  will  certainly  have 
their  reward.  One  remembers  the  words  of 
Cleon,  that  Paul's  doctrine  "  could  be  held  by 
no  sane  man";  and  one  remembers  also  that 
the  madnesses  and  the  wildest  idealisms  of  an 
age  live  on,  while  its  practical  sanities  and 
materialistic  politics  die  daily  into  oblivion. 
In  any  case,  this  League  of  Nations  is  the 
greatest  act  of  faith  the  world  has  ever  seen, 


124  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

for  it  believes  that  Christ's  kingdom  is  an  ever- 
lasting kingdom,  and  that  his  dominion  is  to  all 
generations.  It  has  dared  to  believe  in  the 
power  of  Jesus  Christ. 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    125 


CHAPTER  V 

Statesmanship  in  Foreign  Missionary 

Work 

In  the  bewildering  number  and  rapidity  of 
the  changes  that  have  come  over  every  aspect 
of  modern  life,  none  is  more  striking  and  none 
will  ultimately  show  more  far-reaching  results, 
than  the  transformation  of  our  view  of  Foreign 
Missions.  A  few  years  ago  foreign  missionary 
enterprise  belonged  to  the  region  of  sentiment: 
now  it  has  been  transferred  to  that  of  states- 
manship. Formerly  Christian  thought  wan- 
dered out  in  a  romantic  and  irresponsible  way 
among  lands  far  distant,  and  the  result  was 
infinitely  picturesque,  but  in  many  cases  it 
was  hardly  taken  seriously  beyond  the  inner 
circles  of  the  devout.  Somewhere  in  the  in- 
finite distance  there  was  a  missionary,  dressed 
in  clerical  garb,  sitting  under  a  palm  tree  with 
black  gloves  and  a  Bible,  surrounded  by  a 
touchingly  grouped  band  of  more  or  less  naked 
savages.  Piety  was  graded  then,  as  it  is  still 
in  many  quarters,  and  the  picture  of  the  mis- 
sionary under  his  tree  appealed  only  to 
extremely  religious  people.  To  the  ordinary 
man,  who  was  religious  enough  to  satisfy  his 


126  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

conscience  along  the  usual  lines,  this  was  en- 
tirely a  work  of  supererogation.  To-day  every 
intelligent  believer  in  Christianity  knows  that 
such  a  view  as  that  is  not  only  unchristian  but 
is  also  obsolete.  He  knows  also  that  mere  zeal 
is  not  all  that  is  required  for  effective  work  in 
the  foreign  field,  nor  is  he  much  moved  by  such 
curious  motives  as  the  desire  to  hasten  the  end 
of  the  world  and  the  coming  of  Christ  by  com- 
pleting the  preaching  itinerary  of  the  world. 
Instead  of  that  he  takes  foreign  missions 
seriously  as  a  necessary  department  of  all  real 
statesmanship. 

Statesmanship  means  neither  more  or  less 
than  common  sense  upon  a  large  scale.  Its 
fundamental  demand  is  a  clear  view  of  all 
things  of  which  it  takes  cognizance.  Pfleiderer 
has  said  that  "  in  order  to  conquer  the  world  the 
first  thing  necessary  is  to  get  a  correct  view  of 
the  world,"  and  it  is  this  which  modern  foreign 
missions  accept  as  their  first  task.  In  1899, 
the  late  Dr.  Stewart  of  Lovedale,  then  modera- 
tor of  the  Assembly  of  the  Free  Church  of 
Scotland,  advocated,  in  his  moderatorial  ad- 
dress, what  he  called  a  "  policy  of  missions." 
The  phrase  created  much  interest  at  the  time, 
but  the  majority  of  those  who  heard  or  read 
his  speech  confessed  that  they  did  not  fully 
understand  what  he  meant  by  it.  The  great 
Missionary  Conference  of  1910  helped  to  clear 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    127 

up  the  situation,  and  interpreted  much  that 
he  had  advocated;  and  since  then  it  has  been 
gradually  dawning  upon  Christian  men  every- 
where that  the  foreign  mission  enterprise  must 
be  accepted  as  a  definite  policy  and  reckoned 
with  in  the  statesmanship  of  the  world. 

The  first  aspects  of  any  such  view  as  this 
must  concern  certain  questions  of  detail. 
In  the  first  place,  in  the  choice  of  the  field  we 
have  to  distinguish  between  races  that  have  a 
future  before  them  and  races  which  are  obvi- 
ously dying  out.  The  means  of  reaching  the 
population  of  the  world  with  Christian  propa- 
ganda are  lamentably  limited,  and  since  we 
cannot  at  the  present  time  hope  to  reach  all, 
we  must  select  those  among  whom  we  shall 
labor.  Under  these  circumstances  it  is  neces- 
sary to  consider  the  future  value  of  the  various 
races.  Work  among  those  which  are  soon  to 
become  extinct  has  been,  and  is,  heroic  in  the 
last  degree;  but  statesmanship  demands  that 
the  gospel  shall  be  sent  to  the  fountainheads 
of  future  civilization,  and  to  lands  which  will 
in  a  generation  or  two  exercise  the  strongest 
influence  upon  the  world.  If  it  be  objected, 
as  it  used  to  be,  that  there  is  an  irreverence  in 
counting  heads  in  this  fashion,  surely  the 
answer  is  clear  enough.  As  individual  souls 
all  men  may  be  equally  valuable  to  Christian- 
ity;   but,  as  a  mere  matter  of  numbers,  is  it 


128  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

not  wiser  and  more  effective  to  win  ten  thousand 
people  for  Christianity  than  ten?  And,  as 
those  who  are  employing  foreign  missions  as 
an  instrument  of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ,  must 
we  not  see  to  it  that  that  instrument  is  employed 
in  the  places  where  it  will  ultimately  do  most 
work? 

A  second  matter  of  detail  is  the  choice  of 
missionaries.  In  the  days  when  missions  were 
a  sentiment  the  only  requirements  for  a  foreign 
missionary's  career  were  piety  and  zeal.  But, 
when  one  comes  to  reflect  upon  it,  it  is  surely 
obvious  that  the  work  of  a  foreign  missionary 
is  one  of  the  most  highly  specialized  of  all  the 
professions,  and  that  further  qualifications  are 
necessary  to  insure  fitness  for  effective  work  in 
it.  The  only  reasonable  principle  upon  which 
a  man  should  choose  his  lifework  must  be  his 
fitness  for  the  special  lines  and  tasks  which  he 
purposes  to  face.  It  is  better  to  sweep  a  cross- 
ing perfectly  than  to  preach  a  crusade  badly, 
for  the  world  is  permanently  benefited  only 
by  those  labors,  of  whatever  sort,  which  are  well 
performed.  In  making  the  choice  of  a  profes- 
sion many  things  must  be  taken  into  account, 
but  the  paramount  consideration  must  be  the 
call  of  God  as  revealed  in  the  nature,  the  tastes, 
and  the  powers  of  the  individual  for  work 
along  particular  lines.  Anyone  who  knows  the 
history  of  foreign  missions  must  see  how  widely 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    129 

this  principle  is  proved  by  the  effect  of  mission 
work  upon  the  workers.  There  have  been 
those  who  found  in  the  foreign  field  that  they 
had  no  special  aptitude  for  the  work  they  had 
undertaken;  and  it  would  be  impossible  to 
imagine  circumstances  more  terrible  in  their 
discouragement,  or  lives  more  shattered  in 
their  adventure,  than  foreign  missionaries  who 
discovered  too  late  that  they  were  equipped 
only  with  zeal  and  not  with  fitness  for  their 
difficult  and  complicated  task.  On  the  other 
hand,  who  does  not  know  of  the  magnificent 
effect  in  character  which  is  produced  by  foreign 
mission  work  upon  those  who  prove  really  fit 
for  it?  Men  and  women  who  previously  had 
shown  no  very  distinctive  gifts,  have  in  count- 
less instances  developed  into  superb  evangelists, 
surgeons,  explorers,  educators,  and  administra- 
tors, as  they  rose  to  the  opportunities  given 
to  their  latent  powers,  and  proved  their  fitness 
for  the  enterprise  they  had  undertaken.  Lines 
are  drawn  deep  upon  such  faces,  for  their  work 
is  arduous  and  exacting,  but  they  are  the  lines 
of  greatness  of  manhood  and  womanhood. 

Third,  a  very  essential  part  of  statesmanship 
in  the  whole  business  of  foreign  missions  is 
that  of  patience.  There  has  sometimes  been 
a  craving  for  immediate  results  which  has 
brought  disappointment  abroad  and  criticism 
at  home.     The  statistics  of  conversions  and 


130  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

baptisms  are  no  sort  of  measure  of  the  effective- 
ness of  the  work  achieved.  In  many  lands  the 
baptism  of  a  convert  has  meant  his  ostracism 
and  has  deprived  him  of  any  means  of  making 
a  living,  yet  complaints  have  been  made  that 
an  insufficient  number  of  conversions  were 
tabulated  in  the  returns  sent  home.  It  is 
extraordinary  that  it  did  not  strike  the  critics 
that  it  would  be  wise  in  such  lands  to  provide 
agencies  whereby  converts  could  be  assured  of 
a  living  and  kept  from  starvation.  The  con- 
sequence in  such  cases  has  been  that  countless 
conversions  have  been  achieved  while  no  open 
profession  was  made.  As  one  missionary  has 
put  it,  "  Many  a  Christian  will  rise  in  the  last 
day  from  a  Mohammedan  grave."  It  was  with 
such  things  in  mind  that  Jesus  spoke  of  his 
doctrine  and  kingdom  as  leaven  working 
secretly  and  unobserved,  but  yet  eventually  to 
leaven  the  whole  lump.  There  are  many  kinds 
of  lie,  but  everybody  knows  that  statistics  may 
easily  be  the  very  worst  kind  of  all,  and  it  is 
well  that  all  who  are  interested  in  foreign  mis- 
sions should  remember  that.  One  of  the  most 
touching  of  all  missionary  stories  is  one  con- 
cerning the  late  Master  of  Balliol.  A  certain 
Geronimo  of  Genoa,  having  heard  that  the 
Australian  aborigines  were  the  lowest  type  of 
savages  of  the  earth,  went  out  and  worked 
among  them  for  twenty  years  without  making  a 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    131 

single  convert  or  even  an  approach  to  one. 
The  story  was  told  to  Dr.  Jowett,  and  he  re- 
plied very  earnestly,  "  I  should  like  to  have 
been  that  man." 

A  fourth  consideration  is  the  necessity  for 
distinguishing  between  causes  and  effects,  and 
putting  the  stress  of  our  work  upon  the  former 
rather  than  the  latter.  Heathenism,  with  all 
its  miseries  and  superstitions,  is  due  to  certain 
easily  ascertained  causes.  The  peoples  are 
perishing  from  lack  of  knowledge,  and  from 
lack  of  ability  to  deal  with  existing  conditions. 
The  practical  intelligence  and  directed  will  of 
such  peoples  have  never  been  trained  to  play 
upon  their  life  as  it  actually  is,  and  the  whole 
superstitious  incubus  of  heathenism  is  the 
result.  This  fact  should  give  us  the  point  of 
view  from  which  to  look  at  educational  and 
medical  missions  as  agencies  in  the  foreign 
field.  There  is  a  tendency  to  consider  these  as 
more  or  less  secular,  and  to  set  up  over  against 
them  the  purely  evangelistic  missions  as  the 
ideal  type.  But  in  a  land  of  gross  ignorance 
and  universal  unhealed  sickness,  the  evangelis- 
tic mission  is  to  a  large  extent  dealing  with 
results  while  the  causes  remain  untouched. 
It  is  a  profound  mistake  to  imagine  that  educa- 
tional and  medical  work  is  to  be  regarded  as  in 
any  sense  a  bribing  of  the  people  to  come  and 
receive  religious  instruction,  by  offering  them 


132  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

benefits  which  they  can  understand.  These 
are  really  no  bribes,  but  the  direct  attack  upon 
the  causes  of  heathenism;  and  they  should  in 
every  case  be  encouraged  to  go  hand  in  hand 
with  the  evangelistic  teaching  which  they  are 
rendering  possible  and  fruitful. 

The  fifth  matter  which  must  be  included  in 
this  survey  is  the  necessity  for  appreciating  the 
value  of  pagan  worship.  To  laugh  at  it,  to 
rail  at  it,  or  still  worse  to  ignore  it,  is  fatal 
policy.  To  regard  it  as  the  work  of  devils  is 
to  be  ignorant  of  human  nature  and  the  origins 
of  human  faith.  It  is  not  in  vain  that  centuries 
of  worship,  however  mistaken  or  imperfect, 
have  engaged  the  heart  and  mind,  and,  to  some 
extent,  the  conscience,  of  all  the  races  of  man- 
kind. None  of  the  races  has  lived  in  vain,  and 
none  has  worshiped  in  vain.  Each  has  dis- 
covered something  in  its  worship  which  has 
increased  its  national  value  and  its  spiritual 
wealth.  We  in  the  restless  and  hurrying 
West,  where  peace  in  any  deep  sense  has  almost 
died  out,  may  well  turn  with  a  sigh  to  the  calm 
that  still  broods  over  the  Eastern  mind.  We 
who  have  ceased  to  wonder  at  anything,  sated 
with  the  miracles  of  modern  science,  may  well 
view  with  reverence  the  spectacle  of  childlike 
peoples  who  wonder  at  everything.  We  with 
our  Western  commercialism  may  surely  con- 
fess that  we  have  something  to  learn,  of  beauty 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    133 

and  gentleness  and  simplicity,  from  nations 
less  fortunate  in  respect  of  positive  faith.  In 
a  word,  our  task  is  not  to  bring  God  to  foreign 
countries  in  our  ships,  but  to  find  Him  there 
already,  and  to  reveal  him  to  those  children  of 
His  to  whose  homes  we  go.  We  should  intro- 
duce Christ  to  them  as  the  true  Interpreter  of 
their  own  ideals,  the  Appreciator  of  their  own 
endeavors  in  the  religious  life.  We  are  not 
there  to  westernize  the  East,  as  if  Jesus  had 
said,  "  Suffer  the  little  white  children  to  come 
unto  me."  We  are  there  to  fulfill  rather  than 
to  supplant  the  imperfect  life  of  pagan  lands, 
to  show  them  by  their  very  virtues  and  beauties 
the  sad  and  tragic  lack  and  failure  that  are 
theirs,  and  to  supply  that  lack  out  of  the  fullness 
of  Jesus  Christ. 

No  point  of  view  is  more  easily  parodied 
than  this.  "  Quite  so,"  says  a  certain  type  of 
man.  "  Let  us  appreciate  the  reality  of  all 
religions,  and  leave  each  nation  to  its  own  — 
Buddhism  for  the  Buddhist,  Mohammedanism 
for  the  Mohammedan,  Christianity  for  the 
Christian."  I  need  not  say  that  the  apprecia- 
tion of  other  religions  of  which  we  have  spoken 
does  not  mean  this,  or  any  other  such  cheap  and 
foolish  thing.  The  whole  difficulty,  and  yet 
the  whole  value,  of  thought  on  such  subjects, 
lies  in  fine  distinctions  which  require  a  certain 
delicacy  of  mind  and  a  certain  amount  of  pains- 


134  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

taking  thought  to  make  and  to  preserve.  It  is 
one  thing  to  say  that  the  religion  of  each  land 
has  a  value  of  its  own,  and  it  is  quite  another 
thing  to  say  that  the  religion  of  any  land  is 
sufficient  for  the  spiritual  needs  of  men.  There 
is  nothing  comparable  with  Christ  in  all  the 
world,  and  the  more  precious  any  substitute 
for  him  is,  the  more  imperatively  do  we  hear 
the  cry  of  the  human  heart  for  just  that  which 
He  alone  can  give.  Christ  is  not  a  rival  of  the 
gods  of  the  lands,  to  be  weighed  over  against 
them  as  greater  or  lesser  than  they.  Literally, 
"  He  judge th  among  the  gods,"  as  the  old 
phrase  has  it;  and  among  them,  as  among 
men,  he  comes  for  k/omtis.  In  his  light  we  see 
the  relative  worth  and  beauty  of  the  various 
heathen  cults,  and  the  same  light  that  shows 
us  their  beauty  shows  us  also  the  deep  defects 
of  each  one  of  them. 

The  trouble  with  them  all  is  this,  that  their 
conception  of  the  Highest  has  become  localized, 
and  so,  hopelessly  dwarfed.  The  curse  of 
heathenism  everywhere  is  the  curse  of  local 
gods.  The  consequent  religion  is  bound  to  be 
petty,  wanting  in  imagination,  and  full  of  the 
immorality  of  a  favoritism  which  can  be  se- 
cured by  bribes  or  lost  by  giving  offense  to  the 
touchy  gods.  The  great  business  of  the  Chris- 
tian missionary  is  to  delocalize  the  gods  of  the 
heathen,   and  to  reveal  instead  of    them  the 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    135 

one  God  over  all,  blessed  forever,  revealed  in 
Jesus  Christ  —  in  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  neither 
a  child  of  the  East  nor  the  West,  but  is  the  Son 
of  Man  forever.  Seen  thus  in  His  light,  it  is 
safe  to  gather  and  preserve  the  true  and  beau- 
tiful elements  in  all  attempts  at  worship,  and 
it  is  easy  to  reinterpret  these  in  a  nobler  and 
more  helpful  way  than  had  been  possible  in  any 
heathen  worship. 

Turning  now  to  the  more  general  considera- 
tion of  our  subject,  we  find  that  the  war  has 
complicated  the  whole  problem  of  foreign  mis- 
sions in  many  ways.  It  has  been  said  often 
that  it  must  necessarily  have  presented  a  very 
perplexing  spectacle  to  heathen  lands.  Chris- 
tianity had  come  among  them  as  a  gospel  of 
peace,  and  had  set  itself  on  every  mission  sta- 
tion to  end  family  disputes  and  tribal  feuds. 
It  seems  natural  to  ask  and  difficult  to  answer 
what  justification  will  be  possible  for  the  church 
to  present  to  heathen  men  who  are  perplexed 
by  the  spectacle  of  a  war  between  Christian 
lands,  compared  with  which  the  most  violent 
of  their  native  conflicts  have  been  but  children's 
games.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  we  are  apt  to  underrate  the  in- 
telligence of  pagan  minds.  The  non-Christian 
troops  at  the  front  understood  quite  well  the 
meaning  and  necessity  of  the  war,  and  the  spec- 


136  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

tacle  of  it  presented  no  difficulty  to  them.  They 
had  not  accepted  our  teaching,  but  they  under- 
stood that  we  were  fighting  for  that  which  we 
had  taught,  and  that  our  entire  warfare  was  in 
order  to  preserve  alive  the  principles  of  Chris- 
tianity upon  the  earth.  Indeed,  the  chief 
difficulty  and  stumbling-block  of  this  kind 
which  has  presented  itself  to  the  pagan  mind  of 
modern  times  has  not  been  the  Great  War, 
which  was  fought  for  obvious  and  unques- 
tionable principles.  It  has  been  the  war 
which,  in  its  incessant  guerrilla  fashion,  unfor- 
tunately has  been  waged  between  certain  of 
the  Christian  churches  on  the  mission  field.  We 
may  trust  the  intelligence  of  mankind  to  under- 
stand the  Great  War,  but  what  reason  is  there 
why  they  ought  to  understand  any  worthy 
principle  in  that  infinitely  little  war?  Punch's 
famous  picture  of  half-naked  savages  singing 
their  own  version  of  Handel's  great  anthem, 
"  Why  do  the  Christians  rage  so  furiously 
together?  "  is  one  which  ought  to  cause  in- 
tolerable shame  to  every  Christian  heart. 
Any  bitterness  between  Christian  people  in 
foreign  lands,  or  any  strife  either  upon  ec- 
clesiastical or  individual  grounds  among  mis- 
sionaries, is  capable  of  undoing  years  of  patient 
labor  in  the  building  up  of  faith ;  and  any  states- 
manlike view  of  the  foreign  mission  enterprise 
of  to-day  must  necessarily  view  with  the  stern- 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    137 

est  condemnation  the  pettiness  and  dispro- 
portion which  have  sometimes  characterized 
the  church's  handling  of  ecclesiastical  ques- 
tions on  the  foreign  field. 

One  effect  of  the  war  has  been  the  broadening 
of  the  horizons  of  the  average  man.  Young 
men  who  in  former  days  would  have  lived  and 
died  without  visiting  any  lands  but  their  own 
have  now  learned  something  at  least  of  the 
width  of  the  world,  and  the  spirit  of  adventure 
has  come  upon  them.  It  must  be  this  which 
is  accountable,  in  part  at  least,  for  the  extremely 
interesting  fact  that  the  soldiers  in  the  allied 
armies  so  often  manifested  an  interest  in 
foreign  missions.  Few  men  would  have  ven- 
tured to  think  beforehand  that  a  missionary 
address  would  be  welcomed  in  a  hut  or  camp : 
yet  there  was  no  kind  of  lecture  to  which  they 
would  listen  with  greater  eagerness.  The 
reason  for  this  must  have  been  that  they  had 
already  seen  a  wider  world,  and  come  to  be- 
lieve that  there  actually  were  heathen  lands. 
They  had  now  met  and  fought  side  by  side  with 
men  who  worshiped  strange  gods,  and  the  whole 
fact  of  paganism,  instead  of  being  a  fairy  tale 
of  parsons,  had  exhibited  itself  as  an  actual 
piece  of  the  live  world  which  passed  before  their 
own  eyes. 

On  a  colossal  scale  the  lands  have  mingled. 
At  the  moment  when  men  of  Christian  lands 


138  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

have  been  taken  out  by  the  million  into  a 
nearer  contact  with  heathen  countries,  these 
countries  have  wakened  into  a  totally  dif- 
ferent life  of  ideals  and  of  prospects  from  that 
which  they  ever  had  before.  Even  before  the 
war  the  world  was  wakening.  China  was  trying 
to  waken,  stretching  her  hands  and  opening 
her  eyes  for  a  moment,  as  it  were,  after  the 
long  deep  sleep  of  centuries.  Japan  was 
already  broad  awake,  and  most  keenly  alive 
to  her  own  secular  interests.  India  was  be- 
ginning to  put  in  her  claim  for  a  larger  and 
fuller  development  of  self-government  and 
native  rule.  The  Mohammedan  world  was 
already  the  most  active  missionary  force  on 
the  face  of  the  earth,  and  was  propagating 
the  faith  of  the  Prophet  in  many  lands  with  a 
thoroughness  and  success  which  were  bound  to 
have  serious  consequences  in  the  future.  While 
these  things  were  going  on,  commerce  and 
diplomacy,  easier  means  of  travel  together  with 
swifter  means  of  communication,  were  linking 
up  the  world  into  one,  and  making  it  impossible 
for  any  man  anywhere  to  be  completely  inde- 
pendent of  any  other  man.  As  the  result  of 
all  these  forces,  the  phenomena  of  the  Crusades 
and  the  Renaissance  were  being  repeated  and 
exaggerated  before  our  eyes.  New  govern- 
ments were  rising  upon  all  sides,  most  of  them 
premature    and    all    of    them    precarious.     It 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    139 

took  Britain  more  than  a  thousand  years  to 
bring  her  parliamentary  system  to  its  present 
very  imperfect  condition,  but  nation  after  na- 
tion of  the  Near  and  Far  East  leaped  for 
the  top  of  the  ladder,  and  imagined  it  could 
manage  parliamentary  government  by  a  mere 
decree.  In  every  case  it  turned  out  that  the 
ancient  East  had  adopted  the  methods  of  the 
West  too  suddenly,  and  had  failed  with  them. 
But  that  does  not  mean  that  the  failure  must 
necessarily  be  permanent,  or  that  some  adapta- 
tions of  the  one  form  to  the  other  may  not  end 
in  a  stable  constitution.  As  we  have  seen 
before,  great  civilizations  have  already  risen 
at  the  meeting-points  of  East  and  West,  and 
this  may  prove  to  be  the  case  again  on  a  scale 
hitherto  unparalleled.  We  had  entered  upon 
a  period  which  was  essentially  creative,  when 
the  Voice  which  sounded  over  all  the  lands  kept 
repeating  the  solemn  words,  "  Behold,  I  make  all 
things  new." 

Such  judgments  of  the  importance  of  one's 
own  generation  are  apt  to  be  exaggerated. 
Every  day  and  period  bring  novelties  to  those 
who  live  in  it,  and  because  they  have  not  seen 
such  things  before,  they  hail  them  as  the  very 
Day  of  Judgment  and  the  restitution  of  all 
things.  He  who  takes  a  wide  survey  of  his- 
tory soon  learns  that  every  day  is  a  day  of  the 
Lord,  and  does  not  take  too  seriously  the  esti- 


140  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

mate  of  contemporaries  when  they  judge  the 
novelties  of  their  own  time.  But  even  before 
the  war  we  had  come  to  see  that  we  were  living 
in  an  altogether  exceptional  and  peculiar  epoch. 
Civilization  had  reached  a  point  whose  critical 
importance  no  man  could  possibly  exaggerate. 
Never  in  the  history  of  the  race  had  there  been 
anything  comparable  with  it,  and  the  immediate 
alternative,  from  the  Christian  point  of  view, 
was  the  universal  spread  of  an  absolutely  ir- 
religious civilization  or  the  conquest  of  the 
earth  by  Jesus  Christ.  The  War,  breaking 
forth  at  such  an  hour,  furiously  increased  and 
hastened  the  play  of  these  tremendous  forces. 
We  in  the  West  suddenly  discovered  how  inti- 
mately the  nations  to  whom  we  send  our  mis- 
sionaries are  bound  in  with  our  own  destiny 
in  the  immediate  future.  To-day  we  are  dis- 
covering how  deeply  we  are  entangled  already 
in  questions  which  concern  the  relations  of 
Christian  with  non-Christian  lands;  and  as 
yet,  especially  in  connection  with  Japan  and 
China,  no  solution  has  been  found  to  some  of 
the  most  ominous  and  fateful  problems  with 
which  the  world  ever  has  been  confronted. 
New  problems  are  also  arising  in  consequence 
of  the  threatened  withdrawal  or  restriction  of 
Christian  education  in  India  by  the  British 
government.  But  Christ  holds  the  balance 
between  two  alternatives.     Either  this  War  is 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    141 

the  last  of  the  Crusades,  preparing  the  way  for 
that  reconstruction  of  the  kingdoms  of  the 
world  which  Christ  called  the  kingdom  of 
Heaven,  or  else  the  War  is  the  blast  of  the  last 
trumpet,  announcing  the  dissolution  of  all 
things  and  the  end  of  the  human  story  upon 
the  earth.  Which  of  these  two  alternatives  is 
to  be  the  true  one  depends  entirely  upon  the 
measure  in  which  we  of  this  generation  can 
bring  the  principles  of  Christ  to  bear  upon  the 
international  politics  of  our  time  He  must  be 
blind  indeed  who  does  not  perceive  the  essential 
connection  between  statesmanship  and  foreign 
mission  work  to-day. 

When  we  ask  for  practical  applications  of 
these  ideas,  and  seek  for  an  answer  to  the 
immediate  question,  "  What  part  can  you  and 
I  take  in  these  matters?  "  the  first  obvious 
answer  leads  us  back  to  the  League  of  Nations. 
Here  is,  ready  to  our  hand,  the  proposal  of  a 
machinery  which  is  to  be  at  once  universal  and 
Christian.  Its  principles  are  identical  with 
those  of  Christ,  and  it  is  the  first  time  in  politics 
that  this  could  be  said  of  any  large  piece  of 
statesmanship.  In  the  League  of  Nations  we 
have  seen  government  baptized  with  the  Holy 
Ghost,  returning  to  the  earth,  not  in  the  form 
of  a  world-empire  of  force,  or  of  a  league  and 
bond  of  empires,  but  as  that  Kingdom  of  God 


142  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

which  Christ  lived  and  died  to  establish.  But, 
as  we  have  seen,  Christ,  who  first  preached  the 
Kingdom  of  God  upon  the  earth,  is  the  only 
source  of  the  wisdom  that  can  manage  it.  The 
universal  League  ol  Nations  is  only  safe  or 
possible  or  true  to  its  essential  idea  so  long 
as  it  is  universally  Christian.  No  land  which 
does  not  from  its  heart  accept  the  principles 
for  which  Christ  stood  can  safely  be  intrusted 
with  a  place  in  this  new  government  of  the 
earth.  Christianity  is  presupposed  in  the 
League  from  first  to  last,  and  the  more  clearly 
that  fact  is  perceived  and  acknowledged  by 
those  who  are  responsible  for  its  promulgation, 
the  sooner  we  may  expect  to  arrive  at  some 
stable  and  permanent  condition.  In  the  light 
of  all  this  we  can  see  the  urgent  need  of  for- 
eign mission  work  today.  It  is  already  almost 
too  late. 

In  the  second  place,  we  who  call  ourselves 
Christian  nations  must  take  cognizance  of 
our  own  religious  point  of  view.  We  have  said 
that  missionary  enterprise  goes  out  to  foreign 
lands  in  order  to  delocalize  the  gods  of  the 
heathen;  but  they  who  do  such  things  must 
see  to  it  that  they  have  first  delocalized  their 
own  God.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  God  of 
Christian  lands  has  in  many  cases  become  identi- 
fied with  strictly  limited  sets  of  interests  there. 
Not  confessedly  but  unconsciously,  Christians 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    143 

have  often  worshiped  him  as  the  God  of  their 
own  sect,  church,  or  party,  and  failed  to  realize 
that  religion  has  other  aspects  than  those  in 
which  they  may  happen  to  have  seen  it.  Until 
Christendom  in  all  its  various  branches  has 
recognized  that  the  Love  of  God  is  as  wide  as 
humanity  and  all  human  interests,  and  that 
the  compassions  of  God  and  the  appreciations 
of  Christ  are  over  every  man  and  all  that  con- 
cerns him  throughout  all  the  countries  of  the 
earth,  we  shall  not  be  fit  to  achieve  the  Chris- 
tianization  of  the  world. 

In  the  third  place,  a  new  call  is  made  upon 
us  to  take  note  of  the  other  agents  that  are 
operating  in  the  foreign  field  besides  those  of 
Christian  missions.  The  missionary  enterprise 
must  now  with  a  new  thoroughness  adjust  its 
relations  with  international  politics,  industry, 
and  commerce.  We  must  realize  that  the  mer- 
chant and  the  diplomatist  are  missionaries 
wherever  they  go,  spreading  the  service  either 
of  God  or  of  the  devil  across  the  lands;  and  we 
must  begin  our  attempt  at  the  influencing  of 
the  ends  of  the  earth  in  our  own  offices,  and  be- 
side our  own  firesides  and  cradles,  from  which 
these  missionaries  are  to  go  forth.  No  man 
should  be  allowed  to  leave  a  Christian  land  for 
any  sort  of  service  in  a  land  as  yet  unchristian- 
ized  until  his  mind  has  been  imbued  with  such 
high,  humane,   and  yet  sensible  ideas  of  the 


144  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

relations  of  men  of  different  civilizations,  as 
will  insure  that  his  work  and  influence  abroad 
will  be  worthy  of  the  Christian  name  and  will 
forward  the  Christian  life. 

Lastly,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  there 
is  demanded  of  us  all  a  higher  appreciation, 
not  only  of  man  as  man,  apart  from  his  na- 
tionality and  antecedents,  but  a  higher  appre- 
ciation also  of  Jesus  Christ.  There  are  subtle 
and  mysterious  connections  between  the  various 
parts  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  it  is  probable 
that  the  prosperity  of  foreign  mission  enterprise 
depends  directly  upon  the  spiritual  condition 
of  the  land  that  sends  it  forth,  and  especially 
of  the  professed  Christianity  of  that  land. 
It  is  for  us  to  cherish  and  to  spread  abroad  a 
profounder  belief  in  the  incomparable  value  of 
Christ  our  Master  for  the  salvation  of  the 
world.  Our  interpretation  of  Christ  may  be 
good  enough  for  establishing  a  life  of  faith  and 
hope  in  our  own  souls,  and  yet  may  be  ill- 
adapted  to  conquer  and  to  triumph  over  the 
vast  forces  of  the  world.  Defective  faith  of 
this  kind  is  hindering  the  work  of  every  mis- 
sionary in  the  foreign  field;  and  every  increase 
of  faith  in  the  churches  of  Christendom  is 
forwarding  the  advent  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Christ  abroad.  It  is  for  us  more  and  more  to 
read  the  charter  of  the  Kingdom  in  the  face 
of  the  King,  to  believe  in  Christ  so  fully  and 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    145 

generously  that  we  cannot  be  contented  until 
we  have  shared  his  benefits  with  every  human 
being  in  the  world ;  and  continually  to  measure 
our  estimate  of  the  value  of  foreign  mission 
enterprises,  not  by  the  poor  standards  of  ap- 
parent success,  but  by  the  debt  we  personally 
owe  to  him,  and  the  unspeakable  appeal  to 
every  honest  conscience  of  every  opportunity 
of  paying  that  debt. 


146  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 


CHAPTER  VI 

Britain  to  America 

The  occasion  on  which  these  lectures  were 
delivered  in  the  spring  of  last  year  was  one  which 
brought  to  the  lecturer  a  unique  opportunity 
of  coming  in  contact  with  many  different  types 
of  university  life  in  the  United  States.  From 
Harvard  and  Yale  he  passed  to  universities  in 
the  Middle  West  —  Delaware,  DePauw,  and 
Cincinnati  —  and  everywhere  met  with  the 
same  abundant  welcome,  and  felt  the  same  keen 
delight  in  the  contact  with  every  one  of  these 
varied  spirits  of  university  life.  To  a  British 
man,  traveling  thus  over  large  areas  of  the 
States,  the  first  feeling  is  that  of  an  almost 
incredible  hospitality  and  kindness.  He  is 
welcomed  personally  and  taken  for  granted  as  a 
friend  before  he  is  even  known ;  and,  to  use  a 
colloquial  phrase,  "it  is  up  to  him  "  to  justify 
the  frank  trust  and  confidence  which  have  been 
extended  to  him  in  so  generous  a  welcome. 
Yet  there  seemed  to  be  indications  of  some- 
thing deeper  and  more  significant  than  even 
this  instinctive  good  will,  which  is  so  characteris- 
tic of  the  American  reception  of  strangers. 
The  political  and  commercial  relations  between 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    147 

our  two  lands  offer  some  of  the  most  complex 
and  even  dangerous  problems  in  the  world. 
Yet  he  who  travels  among  the  university  circles 
of  America  cannot  fail  to  discover  a  tendency 
toward  a  closer  union  than  has  for  many  years 
subsisted  between  our  countries,  a  new  fondness 
for  the  old  land  and  a  new  willingness  to  meet 
cordially  in  frank  approach.  To-day  I  wish 
to  give  you  some  sort  of  an  idea  of  how  an 
average  British  man  thinks  about  all  this. 
Some  of  my  impressions  may  be  erroneous  and 
others  disproportioned,  but  they  are  impres- 
sions founded  upon  a  pretty  w^ide  contact  with 
American  men  and  minds,  and  I  give  you  them 
to-day  in  perfect  frankness  for  what  they  are 
worth. 

First  of  all  I  think  you  will  agree  with 
me  that  it  is  time  for  us  to  go  back  beyond  the 
American  Revolutionary  War  in  order  to  find 
the  origins  of  things.  After  all,  that  war  was 
not  the  beginning  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth, 
and  much  had  happened  before  its  lamentable 
outbreak.  Certain  books  seem  to  have  been 
written  as  if  history  began  in  1776,  or  at  least 
as  if  the  history  of  the  relations  between 
America  and  Britain  began  then.  Let  us 
remember  that  long  before  that  war  tore  us 
asunder  we  were  united  in  a  common  fight  for 
freedom.  The  liberties  of  Europe,  guaranteed 
in  the  Magna  Charta,  in  the  establishment  of 


148  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

the  great  guilds,  and  in  all  the  early  battles 
of  its  age-long  struggle,  were  common  to  us 
both.  The  foundations  of  freedom  were  laid 
by  your  fathers  and  ours,  fighting  and  working 
side  by  side,  and  the  instincts  which  prompted 
them  and  the  ideals  which  appealed  to  them 
remain  the  deepest  instincts  and  the  highest 
ideals  of  men  of  good  will  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic.  The  seas  were  wider  then  than  they 
are  now  and  more  estranging,  and  men  who 
crossed  them  became  alienated  from  those  who 
remained  on  the  other  side,  through  lack  of 
contact  and  the  impossibility  of  frequent 
interchange  of  the  ideas  under  whose  dominance 
life  is  carried  on.  When  the  Revolutionary 
War  broke  out,  it  was  not  a  war  between  our 
two  peoples  at  all.  The  finest  intellect  and 
the  vast  mass  of  the  conscience  and  opinion  of 
the  British  people  were  entirely  against  it. 
Burke  was  against  it,  and  so  was  Pitt.  It  is 
not  fair  that  it  should  be  remembered  as  an 
expression  of  the  mind  of  my  nation,  although 
it  was  waged  in  my  nation's  name. 

There  have  followed  after  it  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  of  varied  history  in  both  our  lands. 
In  one  sense  we  were  too  far  away  from  one 
another,  and  in  another  we  were  too  near  akin; 
and  the  result  was  a  tendency  toward  misun- 
derstanding which  has  poisoned  much  of  our 
relations    with    each    other.     We    have    often 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    149 

irritated  one  another  and  we  have  often  misun- 
derstood one  another.  In  the  Civil  War  the 
British  attitude  to  America  was  such  as  to 
satisfy  neither  the  North  nor  the  South,  and 
such  instances  as  that  of  the  Alabama,  and  later 
on  that  in  connection  with  Venezuela,  were 
fraught  with  terrible  danger.  Even  in  the 
present  war  in  its  earlier  phases,  such  matters 
as  our  blacklisting  arrangements,  our  cen- 
sorship, and  our  searching  of  ships,  were  bound 
to  cause  friction  of  a  dangerous  kind.  When 
later  on  you  discovered  how  necessary  some  of 
these  arrangements  were,  not  to  our  safety 
only  but  to  your  own,  I  think  they  may  be 
said  to  have  passed  completely  out  of  mind. 
When,  after  the  long  and  inevitable  time  of 
waiting,  you  were  able  at  last  to  come  into  the 
war  unitedly  and  effectively,  not  only  these 
recent  estrangements,  but  all  others  that  had 
gone  before  them,  were  wiped  out  forever  in 
our  brotherhood  in  arms. 

The  debt  was  mutual  and  we  have  both  paid 
in  full.  We  got  our  chance  first,  and  I  think  you 
will  acknowledge  that  we  took  it  satisfactorily. 
We  were  called  upon  to  give  the  lead,  and  with- 
out calculating  chances  we  sent  our  '  contempt- 
ible little  army'  across  to  the  field.  You  know 
what  our  navy  did  for  the  guarding  of  the  seas, 
the  provisioning  of  troops,  and  the  blockade 
of  the  enemy.      There  were  times  when    we 


150  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

held  the  lines  against  the  armies  of  Germany 
with  a  single  thinly-manned  front  trench,  and 
our  guns  answered  a  twenty-four-hours  bom- 
bardment with  their  allowances  of  half-a-dozen 
shells  a  day.  Yet  by  the  grace  of  God  we  held 
the  lines.  They  were  your  lines  as  well  as  ours, 
for,  as  you  know  very  well  to-day,  the  menace 
which  threatened  our  extinction  would  not 
have  ended  there.  The  final  objective  of  the 
enemy  was  on  your  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

Then  you  got  your  chance,  and  you  and  we, 
cooperating  brought  the  legions  of  America  to 
the  European  battlefields.  I  was  with  your 
first  fifty  thousand  in  Gondrecourt  in  1917, 
and  I  wish  I  could  tell  you  how  deep  a  debt  of 
gratitude  we  owe  to  them.  We  had  been  fight- 
ing for  three  years,  and  our  dauntless  troops 
were  hanging  on  grimly;  but  the  mud  had 
entered  into  the  very  soul  of  them,  and  they 
were  weary  to  death.  They  went  out,  led  by 
high  ideals  that  flamed  like  beacons  calling 
them  to  service  and  to  sacrifice  for  the  noblest 
ends  that  man  can  achieve  or  strive  after. 
But  in  dreary  monotony  and  discomfort,  re- 
lieved only  by  periods  of  deadly  and  horrible 
danger,  men  cannot  retain  the  clear  vision  of 
the  ideal  lights  of  life.  Your  coming  relit 
our  lamps.  We  remembered  what  we  were  out 
for,  and  knew  again  that  it  was  worth  while, 
and  blessed  God  for  your  coming.     In  1918, 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    151 

during  the  most  dangerous  months  of  all  the 
war,  at  the  time  when  our  undaunted  general 
sent  forth  the  one  message  of  the  kind  that  ever 
reached  the  ears  of  British  soldiers  during  those 
five  years,  telling  them  that  our  backs  were  at 
the  wall,  we  stood  against  the  awful  floods  of 
the  enemy.  There  was  no  element  which  so 
strengthened  us  thus  to  stand,  as  our  knowledge 
that  you  were  with  us,  that  you  would  not 
leave  us  till  this  thing  had  been  seen  through, 
and  that,  while  we  had  lost  well-nigh  a  million 
men,  you  would  continue  the  steady  stream  of 
reenforcements  so  long  as  a  man  from  America 
was  required  in  France.  I  need  not  speak  to 
you  of  Chateau  Thierry,  St.  Mihiel,  and,  above 
all,  the  Argonne.  That  was  a  campaign  that 
will  be  recorded  among  the  great  events  of 
battle  on  the  earth,  a  record  of  which  any  coun- 
try might  well  be  proud. 

As  to  the  present  situation,  God  knows  it  is 
complicated  enough,  and  I  am  not  now  going  to 
discuss  it  in  all  its  bearings.  All  that  I  would 
like  to  point  out  is  this:  that  any  misunder- 
standings which  may  arise  are  due  to  details 
which  are  of  relatively  no  importance.  Per- 
sonal criticisms  of  the  character  and  conduct  of 
statesmen,  in  this  connection  or  in  that,  need 
concern  us  little,  though  in  an  hour  like  this 
they  are  apt  to  confuse  the  issue  by  drawing 
away  men's  attention  from  the  things  that  really 


152  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

and  permanently  matter.  To  us  you  have 
stood  for  two  things  which  have  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  party  politics,  either  American 
or  British.  First,  you  have  stood  for  the  essen- 
tial principles  of  the  League  of  Nations,  of 
which  I  have  already  spoken  to  you;  and, 
second,  you  have  stood  for  the  return  of  sim- 
plicity in  diplomacy  and  the  end  of  secret 
treaties.  Late  events  in  Italy  and  in  China 
and  elsewhere  have  shown  the  dire  danger  of 
the  old  methods  of  diplomacy  in  Europe,  and 
especially  of  secret  treaties.  It  has  been  said 
that  it  was  inconsistent  in  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence to  conduct  its  business  in  secret  while 
objecting  to  the  secrecy  of  former  diplomacy, 
but  these  are  totally  different  matters.  All 
business  must  be  conducted  in  secret  until  it 
is  ready  for  presentation  to  the  public.  There 
is  no  possibility  of  carrying  through  anything 
anywhere,  on  a  large  or  small  scale,  while  the 
whole  world  is  looking  on  and  making  com- 
ments. To  the  end  of  time  men  who  have  to 
conduct  affairs  will  be  bound  to  claim  that 
they  shall  do  their  business  among  themselves 
alone,  until  it  is  ready  for  complete  presenta- 
tion to  the  criticism  and  the  judgment  of  the 
public.  But  the  point  on  which  we  must  insist 
to-day  is  that  it  shall  be  completely  presented 
when  it  is  ready  for  presentation.  We  de- 
mand that  there  shall  never  again  be  reserva- 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    153 

tions  in  the  publishing  of  completed  diplomacy 
between  nations :  that  never  again  shall  nations, 
knowing  only  as  much  as  the  diplomatists  see 
fit  to  tell  them,  be  suddenly  confronted  with 
documents  which  have  been  kept  secret,  which 
nullify  the  effect  of  the  things  they  knew,  and 
which  may,  indeed,  entirely  change  the  situa- 
tion.    This  aspect  of  the  present  day  is  of 
supreme  importance.     It  is  not  concerned  with 
this  or  that  awkward  situation  in  the  history  of 
politics.     It  is  a  matter  of  principle,  and  it  has 
introduced  fresh  and  direct  moral  considera- 
tions into  a  region  which,  it  must  be  confessed, 
had  previously  been  singularly  devoid  of  them. 
There   have   been   certain   difficulties   of   a 
more  or  less  political   character  which  have 
tended  to  foster  suspicion  and  hesitation  into 
the  mutual  approach  between  us.     From  the 
British  side  there  were  misgivings,  mostly  of  a 
rather  vague  kind,  founded  upon  the  different 
point  of  view  which  characterized  American 
as    contrasted    with    British    mentality.     Our 
whole  history,  and  the  conditions  of  our  na- 
tional life,  had  in  some  respects  put  us  apart, 
and  it  was  impossible  but  that  we  should  view 
certain  questions  that  arose,  in  very  different 
lights.     Some   British   men   were   afraid   that 
America  would  demand  changes,  or  would  seek 
to  produce  them,  which  we  were  not  prepared 
to  make.     Especially  was  this  the  case  in  regard 


154  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

to  the  interpretation  of  democracy.  On  the 
whole  it  may  be  safely  said  that  the  American 
interpretation  of  democracy  demands  greater 
liberty  for  the  collective  state,  and  allows  less 
to  the  private  individual,  than  the  British 
interpretation  of  it  does.  This  radical  differ- 
ence is  of  very  far-reaching  importance,  and 
it  will  prevent  the  two  lands  from  ever  adopting 
identical  institutions  in  many  things.  Every- 
one who  has  traveled  in  both  countries  will 
recognize  many  details  which  would  be  only 
possible  in  Britain,  and  others  which  must 
be  equally  confined  to  America.  All  this,  and 
the  traditions  and  sentiments  which  cling 
around  the  memory  of  a  throne  on  the  one  side 
and  of  a  republic  on  the  other,  gave  cause 
for  certain  anxieties  in  British  minds.  It  is 
with  profound  thankfulness  that  one  can  view 
the  situation  to-day,  perplexed  and  difficult 
as  it  is.  You  have  not  demanded  of  us  im- 
possible modifications.  You  have  made  al- 
lowances for  our  differing  institutions,  and  large 
numbers  of  matters  which  seemed  fraught  with 
danger  have  passed  away  in  a  quite  astonishing 
unanimity. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  were  difficulties 
that  seemed  to  threaten  from  the  American 
point  of  view.  Your  soldiers  were  brought  in 
contact  with  the  visible  greatness  of  the  British 
Empire,  and  a  great  many  of  them  realized  for 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    155 

the  first  time  how  great  it  is.  It  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  American  men  should  have 
hesitated,  lest  they  were  being  called  in  to 
rehabilitate  the  British  Empire  in  the  hour  of 
its  danger,  and  thus  to  become  accessories  to 
British  greatness.  It  was  quite  reasonable 
that  you  should  hesitate  before  accepting  so 
ambiguous  a  situation. 

To  all  this,  however,  there  is  a  clear  and 
simple  reply,  and  in  virtue  of  that  reply  the 
threatened  dangers  entirely  disappear.  It  is 
true  that  you  did  come  to  our  aid  at  a  moment 
when  the  resources  of  the  British  Empire  were 
taxed  to  their  very  utmost  point,  and  we  shall 
be  eternally  grateful  to  you  for  coming.  Be- 
lieve me,  we  know  the  value  of  the  thing  you 
did,  and  never  till  the  end  of  time  shall  it  be 
forgotten.  Yet  I  do  not  think  that  any  of  us 
mistook  the  meaning  of  your  coming,  or  ac- 
cepted it  in  any  sense  of  which  you  would  not 
fully  approve.  The  cause  for  which  you  and 
we  alike  were  fighting  was  so  great  as  to 
swallow  up  the  consideration  of  the  fortunes 
of  our  individual  nations  altogether.  It 
was  the  cause  of  world-wide  democracy  and 
freedom,  of  eternal  humanity  and  righteous- 
ness. These  are  greater  than  the  British  Em- 
pire. They  are  greater  than  the  American 
Republic.  They  are  as  great  as  the  human 
race  itself.     They  are  the  rescript  of  the  will 


156  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

of  God  for  man,  in  which  you  and  we  are 
but  humble  and  honored  instruments. 

Then,  again,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
British  Empire  has  understood  itself  in  an 
increasingly  democratic  sense.  There  was  a 
time  when  imperialism  and  jingoism  were 
practically  synonymous,  but  that  time  has  long 
gone  by.  Even  then,  in  the  early  days  of  the 
empire,  the  true  measure  of  its  greatness  was 
the  help  and  benefit  it  brought  to  the  lands 
which  it  included;  and  while  our  past  history 
is  no  more  free  from  blemishes  and  immorali- 
ties than  the  history  of  other  countries,  yet  we 
can  truly  say  that,  upon  the  whole,  the  object 
pursued  by  Britain  in  other  lands  has  not  been 
to  exploit  them  but  to  benefit  them.  It  may 
be  replied  that  in  many  cases  they  did  not  de- 
sire our  benefits,  and  that  it  is  tyrannous  to 
force  even  benefits  upon  lands  that  do  not 
desire  them.  To  this  the  reply  has  been  made 
by  the  empire  itself.  Had  its  members  viewed 
the  mother  country  in  this  light,  they  would 
not  have  come  to  us  from  every  region  where 
our  flag  has  flown,  nor  have  laid  down  their 
lives  by  thousands  in  willing  sacrifice  for  the 
safety  and  the  victory  of  British  arms. 

Now,  when  the  war  is  over,  we  are  in  such  a 
welter  of  politics  that  it  is  impossible  to  see 
very  clearly  any  distance  into  the  future,  but 
one  thing  is  absolutely  certain,  and  that  is  that 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    157 

our  relations  with  all  our  colonies  are  being 
democratized  in  a  fashion  which  has  never 
been  seen  on  earth  as  yet.  They  will  share  our 
councils  upon  all  crucial  and  important  matters 
as  they  never  yet  have  shared  them.  The 
whole  conception  of  empire  will  more  clearly 
found  itself  upon  generous  and  altruistic  aims, 
and  will  more  definitely  disclaim  any  notion  of 
exploiting  the  earth  for  selfish  ends. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  religion  there  has 
all  along  been  a  very  great  deal  in  common  to 
our  two  countries.  The  Puritan  stock  was 
certainly  as  strong  a  leaven  as  ever  was  hidden 
in  the  lump  of  any  national  life,  and  to  this 
day,  even  among  non-religious  Americans,  one 
can  see  the  effect  of  it  in  many  respects.  On 
the  other  hand,  America  has  faced  the  world 
during  all  her  history  along  distinctively  practi- 
cal and  modern  lines,  and  you  have  not  been 
without  a  race  of  religious  teachers  who  have 
applied  the  same  principles  to  their  religious 
thinking,  and  founded  schools  of  distinctively 
humanist  thought.  These  two  schools,  side 
by  side,  have  corresponded  with  the  narrower 
and  broader  schools  of  religious  teaching  in  the 
old  country,  but  until  recently  there  has  been 
wanting  that  most  characteristic  of  all  our  Brit- 
ish religious  institutions,  the  fusion  of  the  two 
in  a  humanist  evangelicalism.     To-day  there 


158  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

appear  to  be  signs  that  this  is  coming  in  America 
also,  and  that  the  present  hour,  with  its  mani- 
fold upheavals,  is  that  in  which  it  is  to  appear. 
In  such  an  hour  men  feel  the  necessity  for 
getting  away  from  formulae  and  words,  hallowed 
by  custom,  but  no  longer  applicable.  In 
their  search  for  reality  they  seek  to  combine 
all  the  results  of  modern  scientific  methods 
with  a  religious  earnestness  equal  to  that  of 
the  older  and  narrower  days.  The  war  seems 
to  be  fusing  the  religious  spirit  of  the  United 
States  of  America  into  something  which  is 
at  the  same  time  broadly  human  and  passion- 
ately evangelical. 

These  are  all  interesting  aspects  of  matters 
political  and  religious  in  which  we  differ  and 
agree,  but  the  real  question  between  us,  after 
all,  is  one  of  temperament.  Alliances  are  all 
very  good,  and  are  sometimes  urgently  neces- 
sary, as  they  were  in  the  late  war.  Differences 
of  opinion  may  be  reconciled  as  time  throws 
new  light  upon  old  questions.  But  the  real 
question  deep  in  the  heart  of  all  our  relations  is, 
Do  we  love  one  another  or  do  we  not? 
What  is  the  real  feeling  of  your  land  to  mine, 
and  mine  to  yours?  The  chief  dangers  lie 
in  suspicions  and  misunderstandings  which 
hold  back  the  affection  of  nations  and  leave 
them  apt  to  quarrel.  Even  commercial  differ- 
ences are  not  so  dangerous  as  temperamental 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    159 

ones.  Rival  traders  understand  one  another, 
and  although  there  may  be  sore  feeling  over 
this  transaction  or  that  involving  loss  on  one 
side  or  the  other,  yet  in  the  give  and  take  of 
commerce  a  modus  vivendi  may  be  arrived  at. 
But  who  shall  bring  together  the  differing  souls 
of  the  Oxford  Don  and  the  Buckeye  or  the 
Hoosier?  The  one  is  reticent  beyond  belief, 
and  camouflaged  at  every  moment  under  masses 
of  pretended  indifference:  the  other,  frank  and 
hearty  as  God's  mountain  winds,  warm-hearted, 
approachable,  and  approaching.  These  races 
talk  a  different  language,  and  they  think 
far  differing  thoughts.  Now,  however,  all 
these  men  have  fought  side  by  side,  and  the 
incidents  of  the  long  war  will  not  be  forgotten 
in  this  generation.  There  is  an  island  in  the 
west  of  Scotland,  the  Isle  of  Islay,  famous  in 
the  annals  of  the  war  for  two  great  shipwrecks. 
When  from  the  wreck  of  the  Tuscania  the 
corpses  of  the  American  dead  were  washed 
ashore,  a  flag  was  needed  under  which  they 
might  be  borne  to  their  burial.  On  one  of  the 
bodies  there  was  found  a  silk  handkerchief  in 
the  pattern  of  the  stars  and  stripes.  The 
girls  of  the  island  brought  out  all  they  pos- 
sessed of  garments,  red,  white  and  blue,  and 
after  working  all  night  they  finished  at  the  dawn 
of  day  a  gigantic  American  flag,  under  whose 
cover  the  bodies  were  laid  to  rest.    On  the  same 


160  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

island  the  Otranto  was  driven  ashore,  and  young 
boys  from  the  cottages  plunged  time  and  again 
into  the  raging  waters,  until  they  had  saved 
many  of  the  drowning.  It  is  by  such  things 
that  men  live,  by  such  things  that  nations  are 
born ;  and  there  is  more  significance  in  one  such 
tale  as  these  than  in  many  treaties.  The  great 
question  of  the  hour  is  how  we  shall  preserve 
through  the  difficult  times  of  peace  that  unity 
of  heart  which,  in  so  many  instances,  the  War 
has  evoked.  It  was  a  day  of  great  emotion 
when  Londoners  saw  the  American  flag  hoisted 
for  the  first  time  on  Westminster  Tower,  and 
many  of  us  discovered  then  the  value  of  the 
union  of  the  English-speaking  peoples.  We  had 
been  talking  about  the  League  of  Nations  and 
doing  our  best  to  secure  it  for  the  world,  but 
then  we  began  to  realize  that  the  League  of 
Nations  has  a  center  which  is  already  and  im- 
mediately achievable.  If  Britain  and  America 
stand  together,  a  united  power  is  formed  which 
can  absolutely  dominate  the  world  in  the 
interests  of  freedom  and  of  high  ideals.  Other 
nations  may  for  a  time  secede,  but  no  one  of 
them,  nor  any  group  of  them,  is  strong  enough 
to  stand  against  our  combination.  We  are  the 
central  steel  bands  that  reenforce  the  concrete 
of  the  League  of  Nations,  and  no  greater  re- 
sponsibility was  ever  laid  upon  man,  than  ours 
is  to-day  in  virtue  of  that  fact. 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    161 

When  we  ask  what  all  this  practically  means, 
and  what  Britain  asks  of  America  at  the  present 
hour,  I  am  reminded  of  that  former  visit,  three 
years  ago,  when  I  answered  that  question  by 
the  request  for  men  and  money  and  ships. 
These  things  you  supplied  in  profuse  abundance, 
and  your  timely  lavishness  brought  the  war  to 
a  speedy  termination.  Thank  God,  the  need 
for  these  is  over,  and  now  our  requests  are 
different. 

In  the  first  place,  we  ask  for  opportunities  of 
mutual  knowledge  and  understanding.  With 
the  ocean  between  them,  men  and  nations  will 
inevitably  fall  asunder.  When  we  look  into 
each  other's  eyes,  and  come  to  know  each 
other's  hearts,  we  soon  find  how  much  good  will 
there  is  beneath  whatever  seeming  estrange- 
ment. Men  of  all  sorts,  and  in  all  possible 
capacities,  should  cross  the  Atlantic  at  the 
present  time  —  politicians,  business  men,  minis- 
ters of  religion,  professors  and  students  from 
the  universities.  The  more  exchanges  we  have 
among  these  and  all  other  classes  of  the  com- 
munity, the  better  for  the  world;  and  every 
organization  for  mutual  exchange  ought  to 
be  regarded  as  a  matter  of  high  politics  and 
encouraged  to  the  utmost. 

In  the  second  place,  the  rearrangement  of 
the  world  will  have  to  be  organized  in  many 
quarters    under    the    system    of    mandatory 


162  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

protectorates,  in  which  stronger  nations  under- 
take the  responsibility  for  weaker  ones  during 
the    present    stress.     In    many    quarters    in 
America  there  is  adverse  criticism  of  the  idea 
of  America  interfering  further  than  she  can 
help,  in  European  politics.     Far  be  it  from  me 
to  venture  to  express  any  opinion  as  to  the 
Monroe  Doctrine,  or  to  give  any  advice  about 
it  to  an  American  audience,  but  I  do  venture 
with  great  earnestness  to  plead  that  you  will 
not   withdraw   from   cooperation   with   us   in 
some  of  the  regions  where  we  have  been  fight- 
ing together,  but  will  take  your  share  with  the 
rest  of  us  in  mandatory  powers.     There    are 
certain  regions  where  you  can  do  this  as  no  other 
nation  can.     In  the  Balkans,  in  Macedonia,  in 
Constantinople,    and   in   Armenia   it   may   be 
said    without    fear   of    contradiction    that    no 
European  nation  enjoys  such  prestige  as  you 
do.     Your  whole  contact  with  these  lands  has 
been  of  the  missionary  kind.     The  things  which 
have  introduced  you  to  that  part  of  the  East 
are  your  mission  schools  and  Red  Cross  hospi- 
tals.    In    the    confusion   of    European    affairs 
which  prevails  at  present,  no  European  nation 
could  accept  mandatory  powers  in  any  of  these 
regions    without    some    risk    of    suspicion    of 
territorial  or  other  desires  and  ambitions  of  a 
selfish  kind.     No  such  suspicion  would  attach 
to  you,  and  I  do  very  earnestly  trust  that  you 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    163 

will  see  your  way  to  take  some  such  share  as 
this  in  the  work  of  reorganizing  the  world,  and 
administering  certain  territories.  You  would 
not  wish  to  give  advice  and  yet  withdraw  from 
the  responsibility  of  acting  on  it.  You  have 
given  us  much  advice.  You  have  advised  some 
of  the  wisest  and  noblest  courses  that  the  world 
has  ever  seen  advocated,  but  that  advice  of  yours 
involved  high  responsibilities  and  serious  dan- 
gers. May  we  not  count  upon  you  to  see  this 
thing  through,  and  to  stand  side  by  side  with 
us  as  we  seek  to  carry  out  into  practice  those 
ideals  for  which  we  owe  so  large  a  debt  to 
you? 

In  the  third  place,  there  is  the  whole  social 
problem  with  its  enormous  industrial  and 
economic  complications.  In  the  backwash  of 
the  war  the  world  is  restless,  and  all  that 
seething  mass  of  dissatisfaction  and  sense  of 
injustice  which  has  been  smoldering  for  many 
years  has  burst  suddenly  into  flame.  On  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  it  is  now  realized  that  in 
many  respects  the  social  order  is  going  to  change. 
At  such  an  hour  it  is  of  supreme  importance 
that  you  and  we  should  stand  and  face  these 
things  together.  No  Christian  conscience  is 
satisfied  with  the  social  order  as  it  has  been  or 
actually  is.  On  the  other  hand,  it  will  take 
all  the  wisdom  and  all  the  conscience  of  our 
united  statesmanship  and  experience  to  create 


164  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

a  social  order  founded  upon  justice  and  stable 
for  the  future. 

In  the  fourth  place,  we  ask  you  for  the 
precious  gift  of  your  idealism.  Perhaps  the 
greatest  contrast  between  America  and  Britain 
lies  just  here.  We  are  both  idealists,  but  we 
differ  in  this,  that  while  you  are  always  hitching 
your  wagon  to  a  star,  you  always  tell  us  the 
name  of  the  star  and  point  to  its  guiding  light. 
We  too  have  stars  for  our  wagons,  but  it  is  a 
national  point  of  honor  to  pretend  that  we  have 
none!  When  you  came  to  us  in  the  day  of  our 
distress  and  proclaimed  to  the  war- weary  men 
in  Europe  the  ideals  that  had  brought  you 
across  the  sea,  we  may  not  have  received  you 
always  with  effusion;  but  in  our  hearts  we 
loved  that  star,  and  blessed  God  for  those 
who  reminded  us  of  the  things  which  had 
brought  us  also  out.  A  British  man  cannot 
express  his  ideals  for  himself,  but,  in  the  stout 
heart  of  him,  he  is  grateful  to  any  one  who  will 
express  them  for  him.  We  are  a  peculiar 
people,  and  we  are  apt  to  be  offensive  when  we 
meet  with  anything  in  the  way  of  spread-eagle, 
or  conscious  rectitude  which  is  not  backed  by 
deeds.  But,  if  you  proclaim  your  ideals,  you 
also  make  them  good,  and  that  makes  all  the 
difference.  We  can  remember  the  boasting 
of  the  Germans,  and  the  high-sounding  words 
that  were  meant  to  terrify  the  world.     These 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    165 

words  sound  contemptible  enough  now,  when 
we  remember  the  midnight  flight  of  the  em- 
peror who  so  freely  used  them,  and  the  sur- 
render of  that  fleet  which  was  to  do  such  mighty 
things.  You  made  good  your  ideals  and  you 
rekindled  ours,  once  again  reminding  the  world 
that  ideals  are  the  real  powers  in  life,  the  real 
makers  of  history.  These  things  you  did  in 
war,  and  we  beseech  you  to  continue  to  do  them 
in  peace.  Let  us,  each  in  our  own  peculiar 
fashion,  live  consciously  for  the  highest  things 
we  know,  and  dedicate  ourselves  to  such  living. 
Your  franker  expression  will  find  deep  echoes 
in  our  hearts  and  consciences,  and  will  tend  to 
keep  us  up  to  our  best. 

If  I  am  not  mistaken,  it  is  the  case  that  the 
main  lesson  of  your  own  Civil  War,  the  lesson 
which  after  fifty  years  seems  to  hold  its  essential 
meaning,  is  this,  that  freedom  and  unity  must 
necessarily  go  together.  When  kindred  men 
fall  apart,  their  separation  impairs  the  freedom 
of  both  parties.  If  that  was  seen  in  the  rela- 
tions of  the  North  and  South  in  1861,  how  much 
more  evident  is  it  to-day,  upon  the  large  scale 
of  East  and  West?  In  such  an  hour  one  sees 
clearly  the  supreme  value  and  necessity  for 
this  high  union  of  hearts.  We  are  both  out  for 
democracy,  although  we  define  it  in  somewhat 
different  terms,  and  in  this  ultimate  ideal  and 
aim  we  are  united.     It  is  lesser  things  that 


166  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

divide  us;  the  great  things,  the  ideal  things, 
continually  unite  our  lands  and  hearts. 

Think  of  the  bonds  that  bind  us,  and  then 
ask  who  shall  separate  us  who  are  bound  with 
such  bonds.  To  begin  with  there  is  the  bond 
of  blood.  And  although  you  have  fused  the 
blood  of  many  nations  into  the  great  American 
people,  yet  you  have  managed  so  to  absorb  it 
as  to  produce  a  new  race,  enriched  by  contribu- 
tions from  all  the  world,  but  still  keeping  for  its 
main  characteristic  that  democratic  and  freedom- 
loving  quality  for  which  we  and  you  together 
stood  throughout  the  struggles  of  early  centu- 
ries. We  have  also  a  common  language,  and 
that  counts  for  something.  It  must  be  re- 
membered, indeed,  that  many  of  the  bloodiest 
wars  have  been  fought  between  men  speaking 
the  same  tongue.  Yet,  if  the  union  be  truly 
one  of  hearts,  we  shall  be  able  the  better  to 
consolidate  it  and  to  understand  one  another 
because  we  need  no  interpreter.  It  is  true  that 
words  have  different  values  in  American  usage 
from  those  they  bear  in  Britain,  and  that  will 
always  tend  toward  misunderstandings  between 
unfamiliar  representatives  of  each  land.  The 
need  is  all  the  greater. for  that  system  of  ex- 
changes for  which  I  have  already  asked  that  in 
this  literal  sense  we  may  the  more  fully  under- 
stand one  another's  speech. 

There    are    other    bonds,    however,    greater 


INTERNATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY    167 

and  more  effective  than  these  to-day.  The 
bond  of  a  common  service  to  the  world,  which 
sprang  from  a  common  conscience,  and  was 
sealed  in  the  blood  of  a  common  sacrifice,  may 
well  provide  us  with  a  common  purpose  as  we 
go  forth  into  the  future  days.  Only  let  us  keep 
clear  before  our  eyes,  let  us  write  deep  upon  our 
conscience  and  our  will,  the  supreme  necessity 
for  understanding,  mutual  allowance,  and  agree- 
ment. It  is  the  greatest  day  that  ever  dawned 
on  earth,  and  the  most  fateful  hour  of  that  day 
has  now  struck.  Its  opportunity  and  its 
responsibility  are  almost  terrifying  to  con- 
template. The  fate  of  the  world's  future  hangs 
mainly  upon  our  unity.  The  blood  shed  in  the 
past  by  many  of  the  noblest  of  our  sons  demands 
it.  It  demands  an  intelligent  grasp  of  the 
significance  and  of  the  necessity  for  our  fellow- 
ship, and  a  passionate  determination  on  the 
part  of  us  all  to  retain  and  further  it.  For 
high  ends  in  his  own  great  purpose  God  has 
made  one  again  at  last.  That  which  God  hath 
joined  together  let  not  man  put  asunder. 


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